Chapter 54 last ivy leaf
In a subdivision west of Washington Square, the streets, as if in a frenzy, divided into little alleys called "alleys."These "alleys" form many strange angles and curves.A street often crosses itself once or twice.Once, an artist found something valuable about this street.What fun would it be if a merchant, going to collect his account for paints, paper, and canvases, was going round and round in this street, and suddenly met himself returning empty-handed, without receiving a penny!
Therefore, people who engage in art soon came to this quaint place.They shopped, looking for north-facing windows, eighteenth-century gables, Dutch attics, and low rent.Then they bought some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and they made an "art district."
Sue and Johnsy set up their studio on the top floor of a squat three-story brick house. "Johnsy" was Joanna's nickname.One of them was from Maine; the other was from California.They had met at dinner at the "Delmonigo's Restaurant" on Eighth Avenue, talked to each other, found that their tastes in art, food, and clothing were very similar, and they jointly rented the studio.
That was in May.Come November, a relentless, invisible intruder whom the doctors called Pneumonia stalked the art district, touching here and there with his icy fingers.On the east side of the square, this bad guy walked around blatantly, and every time he got into trouble, there were always dozens of victims.However, in this intricate, narrow and moss-strewn "alley", his pace slowed down.
"Mr. Pneumonia" is not what you call an old gentleman who helps the needy.A weak woman, already paled by the California westerly wind, certainly couldn't stand the appreciation of that old fellow with red fists and panting.But he did hit Joansy; she lay motionless on the painted iron bed, looking out the little Dutch window at the brick wall opposite.
One morning the busy doctor waved his shaggy gray eyebrows and beckoned Sue to come down the hall.
"In my opinion, there is only a chance of her being ill," he said, shaking the mercury from the thermometer. "That ten percent hope is whether she wants to live. People don't want to live, they prefer to take care of the undertaker's business, and the state of mind makes medicine helpless. Your lady thinks she's going to die. What's the matter with her?" ?”
“She — she hopes to paint the Bay of Naples one day,” Sue said.
"Painting?—Cut the bullshit! Does she have anything on her mind worth thinking about twice—say, a man?"
"Man?" Su Ai snorted like playing a little harmonica. "Are men worth--don't talk about it, no, doctor; there's no such thing."
"Then it must have something to do with being weak," said the doctor. "I will cure her as best as I know, and by all means that science can achieve. But whenever my patient starts to calculate how many carriages will take him to the funeral, I have to subtract a percentage from the healing power of the medicine. Fifty. If you can get her interested in winter coat sleeves and ask a question, I can guarantee that her chances of recovery will go from one in ten to one in five."
After the doctor left, Sue went into the studio and cried, wiping a Japanese paper napkin and making a mess.Then she picked up the drawing board, strutting into Johnsy's room, blowing ragtime tunes.
Johnsy lay in bed, facing the window, and did not move at all.Su Ai thought she was asleep, so she hurriedly stopped whistling.
She set up the drawing board and began to draw a pen illustration of a short story for the magazine.Young painters had to pave their way to art with illustrations for magazine novels written by young writers to pave their way to literature.
Sue was drawing a pair of fine breeches and a monocle for the main character in the novel, an Idaho rancher, to wear at a horse show when she heard a faint voice repeat several times.She hurried to the bed.
Johnsy's eyes widened.She was looking out the window, counting—counting down.
"Twelve," she said, and after a while, "eleven"; then "ten," "nine," and then "eight" and "seven," almost together.
Suai looked out the window with concern.What is there to count?All I could see outside was an empty, gloomy yard and the walls of a brick house twenty feet away.A very old ivy, with its tangled and withered roots, clung to half the wall.The cold autumn wind almost blew off all the leaves on the vines, leaving only a few almost bare vine branches clinging to the loose and incomplete brick wall.
"What's the matter, dear?" Sue asked.
"Six," said Johnsy, in a whisper. "They're falling out quicker now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. I'm dizzy counting. It's easy now. Here, another one has fallen. Only five left."
"Five pieces of what, dear? Tell your Sue."
"Leaves. Leaves on the ivy. I'll have to go when the last one falls. I knew that three days ago. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Oh, I've never heard such absurd words." Su Ai pretended to be indifferent and said to her. "What have old vine leaves to do with your illness? You always liked that ivy, come, you naughty girl. Don't be a fool. I forgot, the doctor told me this morning, you'll be well soon." Chances are—let me see, how he put it—he said hello to ten to one! Yo, that's almost the same as when we hitch a streetcar in New York or walk past a new house construction site, bump There are very few accidents. Let's drink some soup now. Let Sue continue to draw pictures, so that she can sell them to the editor, and buy some red wine for her sick child, and some pork chops to satisfy her own gluttony. "
"You don't need to buy any more wine," said Johnsy, still staring out of the window. "Another piece fell. No, I don't want soup. Only four left. I hope to see the last vine leaves fall before dark. I should be there then."
"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise not to open your eyes or look out of the window until I finish? I have those drawings due tomorrow. I need light, Otherwise I would have drawn the curtains down."
"Can't you go and paint in the other room?" asked Johnsy coldly.
"I want to stay here, with you," Sue said. "And I don't like you staring at those inexplicable vine leaves all the time."
"Tell me as soon as you finish," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, as she lay pale and still like a fallen statue, "because I want to see the last leaves fall. I'll wait I'm getting impatient. I'm getting impatient with thinking. I want to get rid of everything, and float down, down, like a poor, tired vine leaf."
"Try to sleep for a while." Suai said. "I'm going to get Behrman to come up and be my model for the reclusive old miner. I can't be there for a minute. Don't move until I'm back."
Old Behrman was a painter who lived downstairs on the ground floor.He was over sixty years old, with an elephant beard curling down from his like head and down his impish body.Behrman was a disappointment in the art world.He has been playing with the paintbrush for forty years, but he still has a considerable distance from the goddess of art, and he has not even touched the edge of her robe.He kept saying he was going to paint a masterpiece, but never did it.I haven't painted anything for several years, except the occasional painting of a commercial or advertisement.He made a small fortune modeling for young artists in the "art district" who couldn't afford professional models.He drank too much gin and babbled on about his future masterpiece.In addition, he was a irascible little old man who looked down on other people's tenderness extremely, but thought that he was a watchdog protecting the two young artists upstairs.
Su Ai found the drunken Behrman in the dimly lit room downstairs.Stretched on an easel in the corner is a blank canvas, where it has been waiting for a masterpiece for twenty-five years.She told him what Johnsy thought, and how much she feared that Johnsy, weak as a dead leaf, would fail to grasp her tenuous connection with the world, and die.
Old Behrman, whose bloodshot eyes were always weeping against the wind, disapproved of this idiot's idea, and snarled ironically for a while.
"What!" he cried. "Is there such a fool in the world who wants to die because the hateful vine leaves are falling? I have never heard such a strange thing in my life. No, I have no heart to be your boring hermit model. You How can such foolishness be allowed to enter her head? Oh, poor little Miss Johnsy."
"She's very sick and weak," said Sue, "with a high fever that makes her suspicious and full of strange thoughts. Well, Mr. Behrman, if you don't want to be my model, I won't." Don't force it. I know you nasty old--old bum."
"You're so effeminate!" cried Behrman. "Who says I won't? Come on. I'll go with you. I've been talking for a long time about my willingness to do your service. Good God! A man as fine as Miss Johnsy shouldn't be sick in a place like this. One day." , I'm going to paint a masterpiece, then we can all get out of here. My God! Yeah."
Johnsy was asleep when they went upstairs.Sue drew the curtains to the sill and gestured for Behrman to go into another room.There they were, glancing worriedly at the ivy outside the window.Then they looked at each other in silence for a while.The cold rain and snowflakes kept falling.Behrman, wearing an old blue shirt, sat on an upside-down iron pot that looked like a rock, posing as a reclusive miner.
The next morning, when Sue woke up after sleeping for an hour, she saw Johnsy staring at the lowered green curtains with her eyes wide open.
"Pull the curtains up, I want to see." She ordered in a weak voice.
Su Ai complied sleepily.
But behold!After the long night of wind and rain, there was still an ivy leaf stuck to the wall.It is the last leaf on the vine.It was still dark green near the petiole, but the serrated edge had been tinged with a withered yellow, and it hung proudly on a branch some twenty feet above the ground.
"That's the last leaf," said Johnsy. "I thought it must have fallen last night. I heard the wind blowing. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."
"Oh, oh!" Su Ai said, bringing her sleepy face to the pillow, "If you don't think about yourself, you have to think about me. What can I do?"
But Johnsy made no answer.A mind that is ready to embark on the mysterious and distant road of death is the loneliest and most desolate in the whole world.That fantasy seemed to take hold of her more powerfully as pieces of her ties with the world and of friendship were broken away.
The day finally passed.At dusk, they saw the solitary vine leaf on the wall still attached to the stalk.The night came with the howling of the north wind, and the rain kept beating on the windows and pouring down from the low Dutch eaves.
When it was just dawn, the cruel Johnsy ordered the curtains to be drawn again.
The ivy leaf was still on the wall.
Johnsy lay looking at it for a long time.Then she called to Sue, who was stirring chicken soup for Johnsy on the gas stove.
"I'm such a bad girl, Sue," said Johnsy, "something keeps that last leaf from falling, and reveals how wicked I was. It's a sin not to want to live. Get some now, please." Soup, and some more milk and wine, and—wait a minute; bring me a little mirror first, and prop me up with pillows, and I'll sit up and watch you cook."
An hour later, she said:
"Sue, I hope to be able to sketch in the Bay of Naples someday."
In the afternoon, the doctor came, and when he left, Suai found an excuse and ran into the aisle.
"There are 50% good hopes." The doctor grabbed Su Ai's thin, trembling hand and said. "With good care, you'll be victorious. Now I've got to go downstairs to see another patient. His name is Behrman - also an artist, as far as I know. Pneumonia too. He's old, weak, sick It's come on fast. He's hopeless, but he's going to be taken to the hospital today to make him comfortable."
The next day, the doctor said to Sue, "She's out of danger now. You've won. Now it's just nutrition and conditioning."
That afternoon Sue ran to the bed, where Johnsy leaned contentedly knitting a useless dark blue shawl, Sue hugging her with a pillow.
"I have something to tell you, little one," she said. "Mr. Behrman died in the hospital today. He had pneumonia and had been ill for only two days. The porter had found him in the downstairs room in terribly pain the morning before. His shoes and clothes were soaked and cold. They could not imagine where he had gone on that dreary night. They found a lantern still burning, a ladder which had been removed from its place, and several Scattered paintbrushes, a palette with mixed green and yellow paints, and finally—look out the window, dear, look at the last leaf on the wall. Don't you wonder why it doesn't blow in the wind? Move? Ah, dear, that's Behrman's masterpiece—he painted it on the wall that night when the last leaf fell."
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