最后一片叶子(中英对照)
最后一片叶子英文原文欧阳引擎

最后一片叶子英文原文欧阳引擎(2021.01.01)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!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching onehere and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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."She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?""She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy,she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your gettingwell? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want toturn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive thefirst line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine.Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left."Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all."I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall.Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."基本简介:真实姓名:威廉·西德尼·波特(William Sydney Porter)笔名:欧·亨利(O.Henry)生卒年代:1862.9.11-1910.6.5美国著名批判现实主义作家,世界三大短篇小说大师之一。
最后一片叶子 英文原文之欧阳歌谷创编

最后一片叶子英文原文欧阳歌谷(2021.02.01)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!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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."She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?""She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave theirway to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were -let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, Idon't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawingsin by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting.I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub inthe line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berriesin his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrmaninto the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of windthat had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in allthe world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendshipand to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left."Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all."I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall.Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."基本简介:真实姓名:威廉·西德尼·波特(William Sydney Porter)笔名:欧·亨利(O.Henry)生卒年代:1862.9.11-1910.6.5美国著名批判现实主义作家,世界三大短篇小说大师之一。
最后一片叶子英文原文

最后一片叶子英文原文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!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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."She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?" "She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinkingtwice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind." "Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes,with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tellyou?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last onefall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in byto-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down." "Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly. "I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "becauseI want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be mymodel for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one,and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in the world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dotsilly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully atthe ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper. Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows andpattered down from the low Dutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. "I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse togo into the hallway as he left."Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all. "I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the firstday in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."。
【英文原版小说】欧·亨利短篇小说-TheLastLeaf最后一片叶子

The Last Leaf最后一片叶子IIn 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!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'h?te of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers.Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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."She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well.Has she anything on her mind?""She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away.An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy.There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self." "You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe.He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to itsstem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. "Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all."I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."在华盛顿广场西边的一个小区里,街道都横七竖八地伸展开去,又分裂成一小条一小条的“胡同”。
【英语作文】最后一片叶子 The Last Leaf

【英语作文】最后一片叶子The Last Leaf故事发生在一座小城市的一栋老旧的公寓楼里。
在这座公寓楼中住着两位年轻的女艺术家,分别是苏西和约翰娜。
她们分别来到这个城市,希望能够追寻到自己的梦想。
公寓楼中有一位老画家,他的名字叫比尔•比尔灵。
比尔灵是一位孤身一人的老人,他的画作让人们津津乐道。
而在公寓楼的对面有一栋墙,平时是光秃秃的,可是在秋天,墙上开始长满了彩色的葡萄叶。
每一片叶子都是红、黄、绿相间,非常美丽,难怪苏西和约翰娜会喜欢上这栋公寓楼。
秋天来临的时候,比尔灵生病了。
医生说他得了重病,只能在家静养。
比尔灵的病情每况愈下,这让苏西和约翰娜非常担心。
而比尔灵的病情也让她们开始意识到生命与健康的脆弱。
公寓中的秋叶渐渐凋零,就像比尔灵的生命一样。
直到有一天,一场大雨打湿了公寓楼外的藤蔓,彩叶纷纷掉落。
比尔灵的状况越来越不好,他整夜的发热,整夜的不停地颤抖。
雨停了,苏西和约翰娜看见对面的墙上只剩下了一片叶子,她们感到绝望,同时也为比尔灵祈祷。
奇迹却出现在这片叶子上。
叶子一片一片地掉落,只剩下了最后一片,而比尔灵的情况也突然好转。
原来,比尔灵每天数落墙上的叶子数量,他说自己的生命和墙上的叶子一样,当墙上的叶子全部掉光的时候,他的生命也将走到尽头。
因此他一直在等待着最后一片叶子掉落,然而他也想看看最后这一片是否会掉。
苏西和约翰娜也被比尔灵的坚持和乐观所感染,她们也开始为比尔灵祈祷。
就在比尔灵病情转好的那天,最后一片叶子却依然挂在墙上,没有掉落。
比尔灵在发现这一幕后,深受感动,他知道这是一个奇迹,是上帝的恩典。
最后一片叶子挂在墙上,成为了比尔灵生命的象征,也成为了一场奇迹的见证。
这个故事告诉我们生命的可贵,无论是什么时候都不应该轻言放弃。
这个故事也向我们展示了友情和爱的力量。
苏西和约翰娜因为对比尔灵的关心和祈祷,成全了这个奇迹。
这个故事给人们带来了启示,让人们明白生命的伟大和奇迹的存在。
这个小故事,是对生命的讴歌,是对希望的呼唤,是对友情和爱情的赞美。
最后一片叶子中英文版

The Last LeaveIn 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! So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'h?te of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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. "She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well.Has she anything on her mind?""She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime. Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away.An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wa ll. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy.There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe.He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to thewindow-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull,wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground. "It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then packsome pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. "Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all. "I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumoniato-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were we t through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colou rs mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."在华盛顿广场西边的一个小区里,街道都横七竖八地伸展开去,又分裂成一小条一小条的“胡同”。
英语日记带翻译:最后一片叶子TheLastLeaf

英语日记带翻译:最后一片叶子TheLastLeaf英语日记带翻译:最后一片叶子 The Last LeafThe Last Leaf is a short story written by O Henry, Settledin Greenwich Village. Its depicts characters and themes are typically of O Henry’s work.最后一片叶子是由住在格林威治村的欧亨利写的一个短篇故事。
它所描写的人物和主题是欧亨利的经典作品。
Johnsy has fallen ill and is dying of pneumonia. She watches the leaves falling from the window of her room, and decides that when the last leaf drops, she will die, too. To encourage her, Mr. Behrman painted the last leaf in a stormy night but he died of pneumonia because of his efforts in the storm.琼西已经生病了而且将要死于肺炎。
她从她房间的窗户上看着叶子坠落,并认定当最后一片叶子掉下来的时候,她就会死。
为了鼓励她,贝尔曼先生在一个风雨交加的夜晚画了最后一片叶子,但他却因为在风暴中的努力而死于肺炎。
This is a sad story about sacrifice as well as a moving story about hope. Likewise, we can learn about something from this story, something that totally different from each other.这是一个关于牺牲的伤感故事同时也是关于希望的感人故事。
最后一片叶子英文原文

最后一片叶子英文原文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!So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."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."She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?""She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue."Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?""A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.""Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloaksleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward."Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumnhad stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks."What is it, dear?" asked Sue."Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.""Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie.""Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?""Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self.""You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. Thatleaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too.""Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down.""Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly."I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves.""Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.""Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he hadpainted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings."Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy.""She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do notcare to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet.""You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade."Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.Wearily Sue obeyed.But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground."It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.""Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.The ivy leaf was still there.Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove."I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left."Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all."I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colours mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivyleaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."基本简介:真实姓名:威廉·西德尼·波特(William Sydney Porter)笔名:欧·亨利(O.Henry)生卒年代:1862.9.11-1910.6.5美国著名批判现实主义作家,世界三大短篇小说大师之一。
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最后一片叶子(欧亨利小说)编辑《最后一片叶子》,一译《最后的常春藤叶》,主人公是琼西、艾、贝尔曼。
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。
最后一片叶子”的故事,着实让我们为琼西的命运紧了一番,为艾的友谊感叹了一回,为贝尔曼的博爱震撼了一次。
作者通过对穷苦朋友间友谊的描写,刻画出一个舍己为人的以自己生命为代价创造真正杰作的画家形象,讴歌了以贝尔曼为代表的普通人的高尚。
书名最后一片叶子又名最后的常春藤叶作者欧·亨利原版名称The Last Leaf装帧平装开本161作者简介▪生平▪手法2作品容3作品原文▪中文原文▪英文原文4作品赏析1作者简介编辑生平1862年9月11日,美国最著名的短篇小说家之——欧·亨利(O.Henry)出生于美国北卡罗来纳州有个名叫格林斯波罗的小镇。
曾被评论界誉为曼哈顿桂冠散文作家和美国现代短篇小说之父。
1862年他出身于美国北卡罗来纳州格林斯波罗镇一个医师家庭。
父亲是医生。
他原名威廉·西德尼·波特(William Sydney Porter)。
他所受教育不多,15岁便开始在药房当学徒,20岁时由于健康原因去德克萨斯州的一个牧场当了两年牧牛人,积累了对西部生活的亲身经验。
1884年以后做过会计员、土地局办事员、新闻记者。
此后,他在德克萨斯做过不同的工作,包括在奥斯汀银行当出纳员。
他还办过一份名为《滚石》的幽默周刊,并在休斯敦一家日报上发表幽默小说和趣闻逸事。
1887年,亨利结婚并生了一个女儿。
正当他的生活颇为安定之时,却发生了一件改变他命运的事情。
1896年,奥斯汀银行指控他在任职期间盗用资金。
他为了躲避受审,逃往洪都拉斯。
1897年,后因回家探视病危的妻子被捕入狱,判处5年徒刑。
在狱中曾担任药剂师,他创作第一部作品的起因是为了给女儿买圣诞礼物,但基于犯人的身份不敢使用真名,乃用一部法国药典的编者的名字作为笔名,在《麦克吕尔》杂志发表。
1901年,因“行为良好”提前获释,来到纽约专事写作。
正当他的创作力最旺盛的时候,健康状况却开始恶化,于1910年病逝。
欧·亨利在大概十年的时间创作了短篇小说共有300多篇,收入《白菜与国王》(1904)[其唯一一部长篇,作者通过四五条并行的线索,试图描绘出一幅广阔的画面,在写法上有它的别致之处。
不过从另一方面看,小说章与章之间的在联系不够紧密,各有独立的容]、《四百万》(1906)、《西部之心》(1907)、《市声》(1908)、《滚石》(1913)等集子,其中以描写纽约曼哈顿市民生活的作品为最著名。
他把那儿的街道、小饭馆、破旧的公寓的气氛渲染得十分逼真,故有“曼哈顿的桂冠诗人”之称。
他曾以骗子的生活为题材,写了不少短篇小说。
作者企图表明道貌岸然的上流社会里,有不少人就是高级的骗子,成功的骗子。
欧·亨利对社会与人生的观察和分析并不深刻,有些作品比较浅薄,但他一生困顿,常与失意落魄的小人物同甘共苦,又能以别出心裁的艺术手法表现他们复杂的感情。
他的作品构思新颖,语言诙谐,结局常常出人意外;又因描写了众多的人物,富于生活情趣,被誉为“美国生活的幽默百科全书”。
因此,他最出色的短篇小说如《爱的牺牲》(A Service of Love)、《警察与赞美诗》(The Cop and the Anthem)、《带家具出租的房间》(The Furnished Room)、《麦琪的礼物》(The Gift of the Magi)、《最后的常春藤叶》(The Last Leaf)等都可列入世界优秀短篇小说之中。
他的文字生动活泼,善于利用双关语、讹音、谐音和旧典新意,妙趣横生,被喻为[含泪的微笑]。
他还以准确的细节描写,制造与再现气氛,特别是大都会夜生活的气氛。
手法欧·亨利还以擅长结尾闻名遐迩,美国文学界称之为“欧·亨利式的结尾”他善于戏剧性地设计情节,埋下伏笔,作好铺垫,勾勒矛盾,最后在结尾处突然让人物的心理情境发生出人意料的变化,或使主人公命运陡然逆转,使读者感到豁然开朗,柳暗花明,既在意料之外,又在情理之中,不禁拍案称奇,从而造成独特的艺术魅力。
有一种被称为“含泪的微笑”的独特艺术风格。
欧·亨利把小说的灵魂全都凝聚在结尾部分,让读者在前的似乎是平淡无奇的而又是诙谐风趣的娓娓动听的描述中,不知不觉地进入作者精心设置的迷宫,直到最后,忽如电光一闪,才照亮了先前隐藏着的一切,仿佛在和读者捉迷藏,或者在玩弄障眼法,给读者最后一个惊喜。
在欧·亨利之前,其他短篇小说家也已经这样尝试过这种出乎意料的结局。
但是欧·亨利对此运用得更为经常,更为自然,也更为纯熟老到。
2作品容编辑穷画家琼珊得了重病,在病房里看着窗外对面树上的常春藤叶子不断被风吹落,她认为最后一片叶子的凋代表自己的死亡,于是她失去了生存的意志。
医生认为再这样下去琼珊会死去。
贝尔曼,一个伟大的画家,在听完艾讲述室友琼珊的事情后,夜里冒着暴雨,用心灵的画笔画出了一片“永不凋落”的常春藤叶,让琼珊重拾对生命的希望,而自己却因此患上肺炎,去世了。
3作品原文编辑中文原文在华盛顿广场西面的一个小区里,街道仿佛发了狂似的分成了许多叫做“巷子”的小胡同。
这些“巷子”形成许多奇特的角度和曲线。
一条街有时自己本身就交叉了不止一次。
有一回一个画家发现这条街有他的可贵之处。
如果一个商人去收颜料、纸和画布的账款,在这条街上转弯抹角、大兜圈子的时候,突然碰到一毛钱也没收到、空手而归的自己,那才有意思呢!所以,不久之后不少画家就摸索到这个古色古香的老格林尼治村来了。
他们逛来逛去,寻求朝北的窗户、18世纪的三角墙、荷兰式的阁楼,以及低廉的房租。
然后,他们又从第六街买来一些锡蜡杯子和一两只烘锅,组成了一个“艺术区”。
艾和琼珊在一座矮墩墩的的三层楼砖屋的顶楼设立了她们的画室。
“琼珊”是琼西的昵称。
她俩一个来自缅因州,一个是加利福尼亚州人。
她们是在德尔蒙戈饭馆吃客饭时碰到的,彼此一谈,发现她们对艺术、饮食、衣着的口味十分相投,结果便联合租下了那间画室。
那是5月里的事。
到了11月,一个冷酷的、肉眼看不见的、医生们叫做“肺炎”的不速之客,在艺术区里悄悄地游荡,用他冰冷的手指头这里碰一下那里碰一下。
在广场东头,这个破坏者明目胆地踏着大步,一下子就击倒几十个受害者,可是在迷宫一样、狭窄而铺满青的“胡同”里,他的步伐就慢了下来。
肺炎先生不是一个你们心目中行侠仗义的老绅士。
一个身子单薄,被加利福尼亚州的西风刮得没有血色的弱女子,本来不应该是这个有着红拳头的、呼吸急促的老家伙打击的对象。
然而,琼西却遭到了打击;她躺在一油漆过的铁床上,一动也不动,凝望着小小的荷兰式玻璃窗外对面砖房的空墙。
一天早晨,那个忙碌的医生扬了扬他那毛茸茸的灰白色眉毛,把叫到外边的走廊上。
“我看,她的病只有一成希望,”他说,一面把体温表里的水银甩下去,“这一成希望在于她自己要不要活下去。
人们不想活,情愿照顾殡仪馆的生意,这种精神状态使医药一筹莫展。
你的这位小姐满肚子以为自己不会好了。
她有什么心事吗?”“她——她希望有一天能够去画那不勒斯海湾。
”艾说。
“绘画?——别瞎扯了!她心里有没有值得想两次的事情。
比如说,[1]男人?”“男人?”艾像吹口琴似的扯着嗓子说,“男人难道值得... ...不,医生,没有这样的事。
”“能达到的全部力量去治疗她。
可要是我的病人开始算计会有多少辆马车送她出丧,我就得把治疗的效果减掉百分之五十。
只要你能想法让她对冬季大衣袖子的时新式样感到兴趣而提出一两个问题,那我可以向你保证把医好她的机会从十分之一提高到五分之一。
”医生走后,艾走进工作室里,把一条日本餐巾哭成一团湿。
后来她手里拿着画板,装做精神抖擞的样子走进琼西的屋子,嘴里吹着爵士音乐调子。
琼西躺着,脸朝着窗口,被子底下的身体纹丝不动。
以为她睡着了,赶忙停止吹口哨。
她架好画板,开始给杂志里的故事画一钢笔插图。
年轻的画家为了铺平通向艺术的道路,不得不给杂志里的故事画插图,而这些故事又是年轻的作家为了铺平通向文学的道路而不得不写的。
艾正在给故事主人公,一个爱达荷州牧人的身上,画上一条马匹展览会穿的时髦马裤和一片单眼镜时,忽然听到一个重复了几次的低微的声音。
她快步走到床边。
琼珊的眼睛睁得很大。
她望着窗外,数着……倒过来数。
“12,”她数道,歇了一会又说,“11”,然后是“10”,和“9”,接着几乎同时数着“8”和“7”。
艾关切地看了看窗外。
那儿有什么可数的呢?只见一个空荡阴暗的院子,20英尺以外还有一所砖房的空墙。
一棵老极了的常春藤,枯萎的根纠结在一块,枝干攀在砖墙的半腰上。
秋天的寒风把藤上的叶子差不多全都吹掉了,几乎只有光秃的枝条还缠附在剥落的砖块上。
“什么,亲爱的?”问道。
“6,”琼西几乎用耳语低声说道,“它们现在越落越快了。
三天前还有差不多一百片。
我数得头都疼了。
但是现在好数了。
又掉了一片。
只剩下五片了。
”“五片什么,亲爱的。
告诉你的艾。
”“叶子。
常春藤上的。
等到最后一片叶子掉下来,我也就该去了。
这件事我三天前就知道了。
难道医生没有告诉你?”“哟,我从来没听过这么荒唐的话,”艾满不在乎地说,“那些破常春藤叶子同你的病有什么相干?你以前不是很喜欢这棵树吗?得啦,你这个淘气的姑娘。
不要说傻话了。
瞧,医生今天早晨还告诉我,说你迅速痊愈的机会是,让我想想他是怎么说的---他说你好的几率有十比一!噢,那简直和我们在纽约坐电车或者走过一座新楼房的把握一样大。
喝点汤吧,让艾去画她的画,好把它卖给编辑先生,换了钱来给她的病孩子买点红葡萄酒,再买些猪排给自己解解馋。
”“你不用买酒了,”琼珊的眼睛直盯着窗外说道,“又落了一片。
不,我不想喝汤。
只剩下四片了。
我想在天黑以前等着看那最后一片叶子掉下去。
然后我也要去了。
”“琼珊,亲爱的,”艾俯着身子对她说,“等我画完行吗?明天我一定得交出这些插图。
我需要光线,否则我就拉下窗帘了。
”“你就不能到另一间屋子里去画吗?”琼西冷冷地问道。
“我要在这儿陪你,和你在一起,”艾说,“再说,我不喜欢你老是盯着那些叶子看。
”“你一画完就叫我,”琼珊说着,便闭上了眼睛。
她脸色苍白,一动不动地躺在床上,就像是座横倒在地上的雕像。
“因为我想看那最后一片叶子掉下来,我等得不耐烦了,也想得不耐烦了。
我想摆脱一切,飘下去,飘下去,像一片可怜的疲倦了的叶子那样。
”“你争取睡一会儿,”艾说道,“我得下楼把贝尔曼叫上来,给我当那个隐居的老矿工的模特儿。
我一会儿就会回来的。
你不要动,等我回来。
”老贝尔曼是住在她们这座楼房底层的一个画家。
他年过60,有一把像米开朗琪罗的摩西雕像那样的大胡子,这胡子长在一个像半人半兽的森林之神的头颅上,又鬈曲地飘拂在小鬼似的身躯上。