纯真年代书吧 2007-9-12 16:05
[align=center][size=12pt][size=6]The Last Leaf[/size] [/size][/align]
[align=center][size=4][color=black][size=12pt]By O Henry[/size][/color][/size][/align][size=4][color=black][/color][/size][align=left][size=12pt]In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips[/size][size=12pt]胡同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画布 should, in traversing经过 this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!1[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]So, to quaint[/size][size=12pt]离奇有趣的old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling巡游, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables尖顶屋两端的山形墙 and Dutch attics阁楼, 顶楼and low rents. Then they imported some pewter白蜡mugs and a chafing dish火锅 or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony." 艺术区[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]At the top of a squatty[/size][size=12pt]矮胖的, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna“琼西”是琼娜的爱称. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hote of an Eighth Street "Delmonico’s," 她们是在第八街的"台尔蒙尼歌之家"吃份饭时碰到的and found their tastes in art, chicory菊苣salad and bishop sleeves so congenial性格相似的that the joint studio resulted.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia[/size][size=12pt]肺炎, stalked大步走 about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager毁坏, 掠夺strode大步行走 boldly, smiting重击his victims by scores几十个, but his feet trod slowly through the maze迷宫of the narrow and moss-grown "places".[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman[/size][size=12pt]行侠仗义的老的绅士. A mite微小的东西of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer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. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead床架, looking through the small Dutch window-panes窗格玻璃 at the blank side of the next brick house.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy[/size][size=12pt]蓬松的, gray eyebrow.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury[/size][size=12pt]水银 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承担者makes the entire pharmacopoeia药典look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she’s not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Paint? - bosh[/size][size=12pt]胡说! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"
"A man?" said Sue, with a jew’s-harp twang鼻音in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter[/size][size=12pt]过滤 through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages马车 in her funeral procession 算计会有多少辆马车送她出丧I subtract减去 50 per cent from the curative医疗的power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak 斗篷sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp[/size][size=12pt]纸浆. Then she swaggered昂首阔步into Johnsy’s room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime拉格泰姆音乐.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple[/size][size=12pt]波纹under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle[/size][size=12pt]单片眼镜of the figure of the hero, an Idaho爱达荷州 cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Johnsy[/size][size=12pt]’s eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Twelve", she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten", and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Sue look solicitously[/size][size=12pt]热切地out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary阴暗的 yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy常春藤 vine, gnarled生节, 咆哮 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粘紧, almost bare, to the crumbling 弄碎, 粉碎, 崩溃bricks.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They[/size][size=12pt]’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."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."( your Sudie[/size][size=12pt]从中可以看出对Johnsy姐姐甚至妈妈般的情感)[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I[/size][size=12pt]’ve known that for three days. Didn’t the doctor tell you?"[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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([/size][size=12pt]从中可以看出对Johnsy姐姐甚至妈妈般的情感)[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Don[/size][size=12pt]’t be a goosey愚蠢的. 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肉汤now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing,（比较前面的your Sudie） so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child(也是指Johnsy), and pork chops for her greedy self." (从中可以看出对Johnsy姐姐甚至妈妈般的情感)[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"You needn[/size][size=12pt]’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".[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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[/size][size=12pt]遮光物, 帘down."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Couldn[/size][size=12pt]’t you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"I[/size][size=12pt]’d rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don’t want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue[/size][size=12pt]（与画家所在的环境吻合）, "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."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner[/size][size=12pt]隐居的老矿工. I’ll not be gone a minute. Don’t try to move ’til I come back."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo[/size][size=12pt]’s Moses 米开朗琪罗的摩西beard curling down from the head of a satyr半人半兽的森林之神along with the body of an imp顽童. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded挥 the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem摺边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涂抹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嘲笑 terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff獒-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper[/size][size=12pt]刺柏属丛木或树木berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas帆布on an easel画架that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy’s fancy想象, 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.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision[/size][size=12pt]嘲笑for such idiotic imaginings.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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".[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid[/size][size=12pt]病态的, 恐怖的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饶舌的人, 轻浮, 不负责任."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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."[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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. [/size][size=12pt]坐在一把翻过来充当岩石的铁壶上，扮作隐居的矿工。[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]When Sue awoke from an hour[/size][size=12pt]’s sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]Wearily Sue obeyed.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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[/size][size=12pt]锯齿状的 edges tinted色彩 with the yellow of dissolution分解, 解散and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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."[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"Dear, dear!" [/size][size=12pt]哎呀，哎呀，said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won’t think of yourself. What would I do?"[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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[/size][size=12pt]狂想 seemed to possess支配her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]The ivy leaf was still there.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"I[/size][size=12pt]’ve been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked 坏I was. It is a sin罪过 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."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]And hour later she said:"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
"Even chances[/size][size=12pt]有五成希望," 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."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She[/size][size=12pt]’s out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now – that’s all."[/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]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.[/size][/align]
[align=left][size=12pt]"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[/size][size=12pt]看门人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调色板with green and yellow colors 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."[/align][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size]
