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

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

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their

studio.

from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street

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

,.

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.

mercury in his clinical thermometer.

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?

man for instance?

worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.

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.

and then

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.

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.

known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?

magnificent scorn.

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.

out the window.

,.

leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll

go, too.

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.

looking at those silly ivy leaves.

and lying white and still as fallen statue,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

,.

the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same

time.

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.

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:

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the

hallway as he left.

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:

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.

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

()

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。（欧·亨利、莫泊桑、

契诃夫）

< br>

原名威廉·西德尼·波特（

William Sydney P orter

），是美国最著名的短篇小说家

之一，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。他出生于美国北

卡罗来纳州格林斯波罗 镇一个医师家庭。

基本信息：他的 一生富于传奇性，当过药房学徒、牧牛人、会计员、土地局办事员、新

闻记者、银行出纳 员。当银行出纳员时，因银行短缺了一笔现金，为避免审讯，离家流

亡中美的洪都拉斯。 后因回家探视病危的妻子被捕入狱，并在监狱医务室任药剂师。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。

1901

年提前获释后迁居纽约，

专门从事写作。

欧·亨 利善于描写美国社会尤其是纽约百姓的生活。他的作品构思新颖，语言诙谐，

结局总使人 “感到在情理之中，又在意料之外”；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”

。

代表作有小说集

《白菜与国王》

、

《四百万》

、

《命运之路》等。其中一些名篇如《爱 的牺牲》、《警察与赞美诗》、《

麦琪的礼物

》

（也称作《贤人的礼物》）、《带家具出租的房间》、《最后一片藤叶》等使他获得了

< br>世界声誉。

,.

名

句：“这是一种精神上的感慨油然而生，认为人生是由啜泣、抽噎和微笑组成

的，而抽噎占了其中绝大部分。”

(

《欧·亨利短篇小 说选》

)

作者简介：

1862

年

9

月

11

日，

美国最著名的短篇小说家之——欧·亨利