The last leaf краткое содержание на английском. O Henry The Last Leaf (In English) — О Генри. «Последний лист» на английском языке

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Два художника Сью и Джонси (женское имя) переезжают в Нью-Йорк и с приближением зимы Джонси заболевает пневмонией. С каждым днём ей становится хуже и она начинает верить, что когда за окном упадёт последний лист виноградной лозы - она умрёт.

The Last Leaf (Part 1)

The Last Leaf In a little district west of Washington Square the street run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places".	Последний Лист В небольшом квартале к западу от Вашингтон Сквер улицы были хаотично расположены и как-будто разделены на маленькие участки, так называемые "местечками".
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.	Эти "местечки" образовывали причудливой формы углы и кривые. Одна улица пересекала саму себя один или два раза. Однажды какой-то художник раскрыл её ценность.
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!	Предположим, сборщик налогов за краски, бумагу и холсты мог, совершая обход, мог неожиданно обнаружить, что возвращается без единого собранного цента!
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.	Поэтому к этой необычной старой Гринвич Вилледж вскоре потянулись люди искусства в поисках выходящих на север окон, фронтонов восемнадцатого века, Немецких мансард и низкой арендной платы.
Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony".	Потом они привезли с Шестой Авеню несколько оловянных кружек и жаровню или две, и превратились в "колонию".
At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna.	Наверху приземистого трехэтажного кирпичного дома располагалась студия Сью и Джонси. "Джонси" - коротко от Джоанна.
One was from Maine; the other from California.	Одна была из Мэна; другая - из Калифорнии.
They had met at the table d"hote of an Eighth Street "Delmonico"s", and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.	Они повстречались за общим столом в "Дельмоникос", что на Восьмой Улице, и убедились в том, что их вкусы в искусстве, салате из цикория и широких рукавах настолько близки, что в результате возникла совместная студия.
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.	Это было в мае. В ноябре холодный, невидимый незнакомец, которого доктора прозвали Воспалением лёгких, пробирался по колонии, то и дело прикасаясь к кому-то своими ледяными пальцами.
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".	Там, на восточной стороне, этот разрушитель шагал широко и самоуверенно, поражая свои жертвы десятками, но по лабиринту узких, поросших мхом "местечек" он шёл медленно.
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.	Мистер Воспаление лёгких нельзя было назвать благородным пожилым джентльменом.
A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer.	Миниатюрная женщина, ослабленная западными ветрами Калифорнии, вряд-ли могла стать достойным противником этому страдающему одышкой тупице с окровавленными руками.
But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking trought the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.	Но он сразил Джонси; и она лежала, почти не двигаясь, на своей покрашенной железной кровати, глядя сквозь окна в Немецком стиле на голую стену соседнего кирпичного дома.

Помогите, очень нужно перевести текст со всеми правилами, не таким переводом, как переводит переводчик! отрывок из The l и получил лучший ответ

Ответ от Elvira[гуру]
"The Last Leaf" by O.Henry.
Если вы хотите сравнить ваш перевод с переводом литературным, эта новелла в прекрасном переводе есть на русском языке. Так и называется "Последний лист". О.Генри.

Ответ от Катерина шаган [активный]
" Скажи мне, когда я могу открыть глаза, " Джонси сказал: " потому что я хочу увидеть последнее падение. Я устала ждать. Я хочу уплыть, как один из этих бедных усталых листьев. "
Старик Берман был художником, который жил этажом ниже них. Ему было уже за шестьдесят, и он был художником в течение сорока лет, но не достиг ничего в искусстве. Тем не менее, он не был разочарован, и надеялся, что он когда-нибудь нарисует шедевр. Между тем он зарабатывал на жизнь, делая различные работы, часто выступая в качестве натурщика для тех молодых художников, которые не могли заплатить профессионалу. Он искренне считал своим долгом защитить двух девушек живших выше.
Сью нашла Бермана в его плохо освещенной комнате и сказал ему о фантазии Джонси, и что она не знает, как справиться с ситуацией.
"Я не могу запретить ей смотреть на эти листья! Я просто не могу! " она закричала. " И я не могу опустить шторы в дневное время. Мне нужен свет чтобы работать! "
" Что! " старик закричал. " Почему ты позволяешь таким глупым идеям приходить ей в голову? Нет, я не будет позировать тебе! О, бедная маленькая мисс Джонси! "
" Отлично, мистер Берман, " Сью сказал: "Если вы не хотите мне позировать, не нужно. Жаль, что я попросила вас. Но я думаю, что вы отвратительно старый - .старый - " И пошла к двери с высоко поднятым подбородком.

Ответ от Funnypepper [гуру]
- Скажи мне, когда можно открыть глаза, - велела Джонси, - потому что я хочу видеть, как упадет последний. Я устала ждать. Хочу опуститься вниз, как один из этих бедных усталых листьев.
Старый Берман был художник и жил на первом этаже, под ними. Ему было уже за шестьдесят, и сорок лет он был художником, но в живописи ничего не достиг. Однако он не опустил рук и надеялся когда-нибудь написать шедевр. А пока перебивался случайными заработками и часто подрабатывал натурщиком у молодых художников, которым было не по карману нанять профессионала. Он искренне считал своим долгом покровительствовать двум соседкам сверху.
Сью нашла Бермана в его тускло освещенной комнатушке и рассказала ему о фантазии Джонси и о том, что она не знает, что делать.
- Ну не могу я заставить ее не смотреть на эти листья! Не могу, и все! - воскликнула она. - И шторы держать закрытыми весь день не могу, мне нужно освещение для работы!
- Что?! -возмутился старик. - И как вы только позволяете ей забивать себе голову такими мыслями? Нет, я не стану вам позировать! Ах, бедняжка мисс Джонси!
- Что ж, хорошо, мистер Берман, - ответила Сью, - если вы не хотите мне позировпть, то и не надо. И спрашивать не стоило. Но, скажу я вам, вы вредный старый... старый...
И она направилась к двери, задрав нос.

Ответ от Valery Bolshina [новичек]
- Скажи мне, когда кончишь, - закрывая глаза, произнесла Джонси, потому что мне хочется видеть, как упадет последний лист. Я устала ждать. Мне хочется лететь, лететь все ниже и ниже, как один из этих бедных, усталых листьев. Старик Берман был художник, который жил в нижнем этаже под ними. Ему было уже за шестьдесят, 40 из ккоторых он был художником, однако В искусстве он был неудачником. однако он не терял дух и все собирался написать шедевр. Он зарабатывал кое-что, позируя молодым художникам, которым профессионалы-натурщики оказывались не по карману. он искренне верил, что специально приставлен для охраны двух молодых художниц.
Сью застала Бермана, в его полутемной каморке.Сью рассказала старику про фантазию Джонси и про свои опасения относительно сложившейся ситуации.
Я не могу заставить ее не смотретьь на эти листья! просто не могу! -вскричала она. для того, чтобы работать Мне нужен свет, а то я спустила бы штору. Что! - кричал старик. Как вы позволяете ей забивать голову такой чепухой? Нет, не желаю позировать! Ах, бедная маленькая мисс Джонси!
Очень хорошо, мистер Берман, - если вы не хотите мне позировать, то и не надо. Лучше бы я и не просила. А я все-таки думаю, что вы противный старик… И с гордостью подняв подбородок, она направилась к двери

Ответ от Alexander Alenitsyn [гуру]
"Скажи мне, когда можно будет открыть глаза", сказала Джонси,"потому что я хочу видеть, как падает последний (листок). Я уже устала ждать. Я хочу уплыть (в небытие) как один из этих бедных усталых листьев".
Старик Берман был художником, жившим на первом этаже под ними. Ему было уже за шестьдесят, и он занимался живописью уже сорок лет, но так ничего в искусстве не достиг. Однако, он не разочаровался и надеялся, что когда-нибудь напишет шедевр. Тем временем на жизнь он зарабатывал разными способами, часто служа моделью для тех молодых художников, кто не мог платить профессиональным нарурщикам. Он искренне думал, что его долг - опекать тех двух девушек, которые жили над ним.
Она нашла Бермана в его полутёмной комнате и рассказала ему о фантазии Джонси, и что она не знает, что делать в этой ситуации.
"Я не могу удержать её от того, чтобы она глядела на эти листья! Я просто не в состоянии!" кричала она. "И я не могу опускать шторы днём. Мне нужен свет для работы!"
"Что такое?" закричал старик. "Почему ты позволяешь, чтобы такие глупости приходили ей в голову? Ну нет, я тебе не буду позировать! О, эта бедная малышка мисс Джонси!"
"Отлично, мистер Берман," сказала Сью, "не хотите мне позировать, и не надо. Жалею, что просила Вас об этом. Но я думаю, что Вы - мерзкий старый - старый - " И она направилась к двери с гордо поднятым подбородком (букв: с поднятым вверх подбородком).

Если вы еще не читали рассказы О. Генри, то самое время познакомиться с этим американским писателем. И начнем мы с его, пожалуй, самого лучшего рассказа «Последний лист» (The Last Leaf). Хотя О. Генри старался избегать плохих концов, чтобы не расстраивать своего читателя, конец этой истории неоднозначен… Рассказ адаптирован до уровня intermediate (для продолжающих). Читайте онлайн рассказ «The Last Leaf» на английском или на русском языке, а также смотрите его экранизации.

O. Henry «The Last Leaf (part 1)»

Words for part 1:

shared a studio apartment — делили однокомнатную квартиру
This disease, pneumonia — Эта болезнь, пневмония
She has one chance in — let us say ten — У нее один шанс из, скажем, десяти.
Has she anything on her mind worth thinking? — Есть ли ей о чем стоит думать?
to count the carriages at her funeral — считать кареты в своей похоронной процессии
several times repeated —который повторялся несколько раз
She was …. — counting backward — Она считала в обратном порядке.
What was there to count? — Что там было считать?
An old ivy vine — старый плющ
When the last one falls — Когда последний упадет
Then I’ll go, too. — Тогда я умру.

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 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 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."

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!

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’ho^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 finger. 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 Californian 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-up on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopia 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 woth thinking about twice — a man, for instance?’

‘A man?’ said Sue, with a jews’-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 cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get 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. She stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.

As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho comboy, she heard a new 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 a little later, ‘eleven’; and then ‘ten’, and ‘nine’; and then ‘eight’ and ‘seven’ almost together.

Sue looked solicitously out 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 has stricken its leaves from the vine until iits skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.

‘What is it, dear?’ asked Sue.

‘Six’, said Johney, 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 bow it’s easy. There goes another one. There areonle five left now."

‘Five what, dear?" Tell your Sudie/"

‘Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one fals I must go too. I’ve known that for three days. Disn’t the doctor tell you?’

‘Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,’ complained Sue, with magnoficent 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 on 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 greedy self.’

‘You needn’t get any more wine,’ said Johnsy her eyes fixed out the window.

"There goes another. No, I dont 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 ypur yees closee, and not look out of the window until I am done working? A 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 Johny coldly.

I’d rather be here by you,’ said Sue. ‘Besides, I don’t want you to keep looking at those silly ovy leaves."

‘Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as a 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 sailng down, down, just like one one of those poor, tired leaves.

‘Try to sleep’, said Sue. ‘I must call Behrmann up to me be my model for the old hermit miner. I’ll not be gone a minute. Don’t cry too move till 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 heard of a satyr along 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 comuing masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in anyone, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.

Sue found Behrmann 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 he 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 vill not bose as a model for you fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of her? Ach, dot poor little Miss Yohnsy.’

‘She is very ill and weak,’ said Sue, ‘and the feveer 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 flibberti-gibbet’.

‘You are just like a woman!’ yelles Behrman. ‘Who said I villl 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 gott as Miss Yohnsy shal lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go avay. 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 fallung, 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 mornong she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open staring at the drawn green shade.

‘Pull it up! I want to see,’ she ordered, in a whisper.

Wearily Sue obeyed.

But, lo! after rhe beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick walll one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, but with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from a 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 njt answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world ia a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far jouney. The fancy seemed to posses her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.

When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.

The ivy leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay 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 me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and — no; bring me a hand-mirrow first; and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up und watch you cook."

An hour later she said —

‘Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of anaples."

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.

‘Even chances,’ said the doctor, talking 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 confortable.’

The next day the doctor said to Sue: ‘She’s out of dange. You’ve won. Nutrition and care now — that’s all.’

And taht afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentdely knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pilllows and al.

‘A have something to tell you, white mouse,’ she said. "’Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in hospital. He wai ill only two days. The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. And couldnt imagene 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 lasr 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.’

The Last Leaf (Part 1)

O. Henry «The Last Leaf (part 1)»

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