SUMMARY
Greenwich Village was, and is, a quarter in New York where artists like to live. They could be famous artists or poor artists, but all of them strove to produce a masterpiece. However, in order to make booth ends meet, they had to do menial works, usually related to decorative arts.
In a building in this place, there lived a pair of
young women, Johnsy and Sue. As most of the artists there, they had their own
difficulties with money; but money wasn’t the only trouble: that year, November was
very cold, and Johnsy caught a pneumonia. In the beginning of the twentieth
century, a pneumonia was a serious illness and sometimes a fatal one.
The doctor visited Johnsy and gave her some remedies, but
she didn’t get better, and according to the doctor, it was because she was in low spirits, she didn’t
have the strength of mind to overcome her disease and she felt depressed and suspected
she was going to die soon; in short, she imagined that her life depended on the number of
leaves of an old ivy vine that climbed the wall opposite her window; as fewer
leaves were left in the vine, less life was left for her. So, falling leaves were a kind
of final countdown for her.
Sue and Johnsy had a neighbour, old Behrman. He was also a poor
artist trying to start to paint what had to be his masterpiece; but he never could find
the inspiration. Although he was in want all the time, he tried to help his neighbours artists and sometimes posed for them.
Sue told old Behrman about Johnsy’s illness and about her strange obsession with the falling leaves, and perhaps he thought about her strange superstition.
Well, in the end, the vine had only a leaf left. Johnsy believed it was her last hope to live: if the leaf fell, she would die; if the leaf stood stuck to the vine, she would live.
That night was windy and snowy, so her chances to live were few, and her friend wouldn't allow her to be watching the last leaf during the night.
But the next morning, the leaf was still there: it had withstood all the attacks of the tempest. And because of this, Johnsy recovered her spirits and
her desire to live, and soon she felt better.
When she was a bit stronger, Sue told her a piece
of bad news: her good old neighbour was found dead on the snow, on the street
below their window, the night of the tempest, with his painting tools near him.
What was he doing there?
QUESTIONS
-A big question: what is art? Or better: what is art for you?
-Are you superstitious? What can be a definition of superstition? Do you know a superstition that has a scientific basis?
-Johnsy didn't have spirits to fight for her life. When a disease can be considered psychosomatic?
VOCABULARY
paid on account, gable, pewter, bishop sleeves, duffer, smote, Ducht window, jew's harp, goosey, imp, hem, daub, juniper berries
