边听边读:'The Last Leaf,' by O. Henry,生活在美国微信公众号文章

老画家贝尔曼为了让患肺炎的琼西重新振作起来，在一个风雨交加的夜晚，冒着寒风冷雨，在墙上画了一片永不会掉落的“叶子”，这片叶子使琼西重新看到了希望，康复了，而这片树叶却成了贝尔曼的绝笔之作……

静静地放松下来听一会儿，英文其实很美......

Our story today is called "The Last Leaf." It was writtenby O. Henry. Here is Barbara Klein with the story.

Many artists lived in the Greenwich Village area of NewYork. Two young women named Sue and Johnsyshared a studio apartment at the top of a three-storybuilding. Johnsy's real name was Joanna.

In November, a cold, unseen stranger came to visit thecity. This disease, pneumonia, killed many people.Johnsy lay on her bed, hardly moving. She lookedthrough the small window. She could see the side of thebrick house next to her building.

One morning, a doctor examined Johnsy and took hertemperature. Then he spoke with Sue in another room.

"She has one chance in -- let us say ten," he said. "And that chance is for her to want to live. Your friend hasmade up her mind that she is not going to get well. Has she anything on hermind?"

"She -- she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples in Italy some day," said Sue.

"Paint?" said the doctor. "Bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinkingtwice -- a man for example?"

"A man?" said Sue. "Is a man worth -- but, no, doctor; there is nothing of thekind."

"I will do all that science can do," said the doctor. "But whenever my patientbegins to count the carriages at her funeral, I take away fifty percent from thecurative power of medicines."

After the doctor had gone, Sue went into the workroom and cried. Then shewent to Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.

Johnsy lay with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinkingshe was asleep. She began making a pen and ink drawing for a story in amagazine. Young artists must work their way to "Art" by making pictures formagazine stories. Sue heard a low sound, several times repeated. She wentquickly 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 out the window. What was there to count? There was only anempty yard and the blank side of the house seven meters away. An old ivyvine, going bad at the roots, climbed half way up the wall. The cold breath ofautumn had stricken leaves from the plant until its branches, almost bare,hung on the bricks.

"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.

"Six," said Johnsy, quietly. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago therewere almost a hundred. It made my head hurt to count them. But now it'seasy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."

"Five what, dear?" asked Sue.

"Leaves. On the plant. 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 a thing," said Sue. "What have old ivy leaves to dowith your getting well? And you used to love that vine. Don't be silly. Why, thedoctor 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! Try toeat some soup now. And, let me go back to my drawing, so I can sell it to themagazine and buy food and wine for us."

"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out thewindow. "There goes another one. No, I don't want any soup. That leaves justfour. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, "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 tomorrow."

"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes andlying white and still as a fallen statue. "I want to see the last one fall. I'm tiredof 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 Mister Behrman upto be my model for my drawing of an old miner. Don'ttry to move until I come back."

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the groundfloor of the apartment building. Behrman was a failurein art. For years, he had always been planning to painta work of art, but had never yet begun it. He earned alittle money by serving as a model to artists who couldnot pay for a professional model. He was a fierce, little,old man who protected the two young women in thestudio apartment above him.

Sue found Behrman in his room. In one area was ablank canvas that had been waiting twenty-five yearsfor the first line of paint. Sue told him about Johnsy and how she feared thather friend would float away like a leaf.

Old Behrman was angered at such an idea. "Are there people in the world withthe foolishness to die because leaves drop off a vine? Why do you let thatsilly business come in her brain?"

"She is very sick and weak," said Sue, "and the disease has left her mind fullof strange ideas."

"This is not any place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy shall lie sick,"yelled Behrman. "Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all goaway."

Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down tocover the window. She and Behrman went into the other room. They lookedout a window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other withoutspeaking. A cold rain was falling, mixed with snow. Behrman sat and posedas the miner.

The next morning, Sue awoke after an hour's sleep. She found Johnsy withwide-open eyes staring at the covered window.

"Pull up the shade; I want to see," she ordered, quietly.

Sue obeyed.

After the beating rain and fierce wind that blew through the night, there yetstood against the wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. It was stilldark green at the center. But its edges were colored with the yellow. It hungbravely from the branch about seven meters above the ground.

"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. Iheard the wind. It will fall today and I shall die at the same time."

"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down toward the bed. "Think ofme, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer.

The next morning, when it was light, Johnsy demanded that the window shadebe raised. The ivy leaf was still there. Johnsy lay for a long time, looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was preparing chicken soup.

"I've been a bad girl," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf staythere to show me how bad I was. It is wrong to want to die. You may bring mea little soup now."

An hour later she said: "Someday I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."

Later in the day, the doctor came, and Sue talked to him in the hallway.

"Even chances," said the doctor. "With good care, you'll win. And now I mustsee another case I have in your building. Behrman, his name is -- some kindof an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man and his case issevere. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital today to ease hispain."

The next day, the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutritionand care now -- that's all."

Later that day, Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, and put one armaround her.

"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mister Behrman died ofpneumonia today in the hospital. He was sick only two days. They found himthe morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. Hisshoes and clothing were completely wet and icy cold. They could not imaginewhere he had been on such a terrible night.

And then they found a lantern, still lighted. And they found a ladder that had been moved from its place. And art supplies and a painting board with greenand yellow colors mixed on it.

And look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't youwonder why it never moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it is Behrman'smasterpiece – he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."