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!
Washington Square：ワシントンスクエア（アメリカのニューヨーク市の広場）。strips：細長い土地。suppose：～とすれば。bill：請求書。traversing：通過。cent：セント（アメリカやカナダなどの通貨／１００分の１ドル）。paid on account：内金として支払われた。
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."
quaint：古風な趣きがある。Greenwich Village：グリニッチヴィレッジ（アメリカのニューヨーク市の地区）。prowling：徘徊して。hunting for：探し求めて。gables：切妻造り（本を半分に開いて被せたような屋根の建築）。Dutch：オランダの。attics：屋根裏。rents：家賃。chafing dish：焜炉付き卓上鍋。colony：集落。
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'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.
squatty：ずんぐりした。Sue：スー（人名／名前、Susan／スーザンやSusanna／スザンナなどの短縮形）。Johnsy：ジョンジィ（人名／名前、Joanna／ジョアンナの愛称）。Joanna：ジョアンナ（人名／名前）。Main：メーン（アメリカの州名）。California：カリフォルニア（アメリカの州名）。table d'hote：定食（プランのコース料理などの一揃いの料理）。Delmonico's：デルモニコス（店名）。chicory salad：チコリー（菊苦菜）サラダ。bishop sleeves：ビショップスリーヴ（肘から下の袖が大きく膨らんだ服の形）。congenial：性に合う。
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."
pneumonia：肺炎。stalked：闊歩した。ravager：破壊者。strode：大股に歩いた。smiting his victims by scores：何十人も彼の犠牲者を出して。trod：歩いた。maze：入り組み。moss-grown：苔生した。
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.
chivalric：騎士道精神の。mite：可哀想な人。zephyrs：微風。fair game：格好の的。duffer：馬鹿者。smote：強打する。bedstead：ベッド枠組み。window-panes：窓硝子。
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.
hallway：廊下。shaggy：毛深い。
"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 pharmacopeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
mercury：水銀。undertaker：葬儀屋。pharmacopeia：薬局方。silly：愚かな。made up her mind：（彼女が）決心した。has she anything on her mind：彼女には気にかけていることがあるか。
"She—she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
Naples：ナポリ（イタリアの都市）。
"Paint?—bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice—a man, for instance?"
bosh：馬鹿な。
"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."
jew's-harp：口琴。twang：（弦が）ポロンと鳴った。
"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."
filter through：染み通る。carriages：馬車。funeral procession：葬列。subtract：引く。curative：治療上の。cloak：クローク（袖なし外套）。
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.
to a pulp：ぐにゃぐにゃになるまで。swaggered：威張って歩いた。ragtime：ラグタイム（音楽の一種）。
Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.
ripple：漣。
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.
pave their way to：彼らの道を開く。
As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle on the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.
horseshow：馬術ショー。riding trousers：乗馬ズボン。monocle：単眼鏡。Idaho：アイダホ（アメリカの州名）。
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 had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.
solicitously：心配して。bare：何もない。dreary：侘しい。ivy：蔦。vine：蔓。gnarled：節榑立った。decayed：腐った。skeleton：骨組み。clung：くっ付く。crumbling：崩れている。
"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."
Sudie：スーディー（人名／名前、Susan／スーザンやSusanna／スザンナなどの変形）。
"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?"
go：逝く。
"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."
magnificent：壮大な。scorn：軽蔑。do with：処置する。naughty：悪戯な。goosey：間抜け（鵞から転じて）。New York：ニューヨーク（アメリカの市名か州名）。street cars：市街電車。broth：ブイヨン。port wine：ポートワイン（酒の一種）。pork chops：ポークチョップ（料理の一種）。greedy：欲張りな。
"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."
bending：上半身を曲げる。shade：日除け。
"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.
"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Besides 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 a fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I went to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."
statue：彫像。sailing：帆走。
"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 'till I come back."
call Behrman up：ベーアマンを呼び出す。hermit：隠者。miner：坑夫。
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 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.
ground floor：一階。Michael Angelo's：ミケランジェロ（芸術家の一人）の。Moses：モーセ（聖人の一人）。satyr：サテュロス（ギリシャ神話の半人半獣の自然の聖霊）。imp：小鬼。failure：失敗者。wielded：使い熟した。hem：縁（へり／衣服の周りの折り返して縫い止められた部分）。Mistress's：女主人の。now and then：時々。daub：塗り付け。in the line of：～の一部に。gin：ジン（酒の一種）。fierce：凶暴な。scoffed：嘲笑った。mastiff-in-waiting：お仕えマスティフ（犬の一種）。
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.
juniper berries：西洋ネズの実。dimly：薄暗く。easel：画架。fancy：空想。light：軽い。fragile：脆い。slight：僅かな。
Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.
streaming：涙ながら。contempt：軽蔑。derision：嘲笑。idiotic：馬鹿げた。
"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 prain of her? Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy."
※ドイツ訛りの英語、単語の表記が標準的な英語と微妙に異なっている。
"What!" he cried. "Is there people in the world with the foolishness to die because leafs they drop off from a confounded vine? I have not heard of such a thing. No, I will not pose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Why do you allow that silly business to come in the brain of her? Ah, that poor little Miss Johnsy."
confounded：忌々しい。pose：ポーズを取る。hermit-dunderhead：隠者の馬鹿者。business：個人的な事情。
"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."
morbid：陰気な。horrid：忌まわしい。flibbertigibbet：お喋りで軽薄な人。
"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."
※ドイツ訛りの英語、単語の表記が標準的な英語と微妙に異なっている。
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not pose? Go on. I come with you. For half an hour I have been trying to say that I am ready to pose. God! this is not any place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy shall lie sick. Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all go away. God! yes."
yelled：怒鳴った。
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.
window-sill：窓台。motioned：合図した。peered：じっと見た。persistent：永続的な。mingled with：～と混ざった。upturned：上に向いた。
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.
dull：鈍い。
"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
wearily：ぐったり。
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 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.
lo：見よ。gusts of wind：突風。endured：耐えた。livelong：長い。stood out：持ち堪えた。stem：茎。serrated：鋸歯状の。tinted with：～で色付いた。dissolution：分解。decay：腐敗。
"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?"
worn：疲れた。
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.
lonesomest：最も寂しい。possess：支配する。bound her to：彼女を～に結び付けた。loosed：緩められた。
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.
wore away：段々と経った。clinging：しがみ付く。pattered down：パラパラと落ちた。eaves：軒。
When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.
merciless：無慈悲な。
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.
stirring：掻き混ぜる。
"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-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."
wicked：意思悪な。sin：罪。with a little port：少しのポートワインを入れて。pack：詰める。
An 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.
had an excuse to go：行くべきわけがあった。
"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."
even：五分五分。nursing：看病。attack：発病。acute：急性。to be made more comfortable：もっと楽にさせるために。
The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've won. Nutrition and care now—that's all."
nutrition and care：栄養と看護。
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
contentedly：満ち足りて。knitting：編み物をする。
"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 on 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 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."
janitor：（建物の）管理人（アメリカ英語）。helpless：どうすることもできない。dreadful：恐るべき。lantern：角灯。scattered：散らばった。fluttered：はためく。
原文の出典：The Last Leaf
単語や熟語の意味は文意に相応しいものを一つだけ選んだ。作品の趣向に合うかどうか、つまり訳語として充分かどうかはさほど考慮しない。英語で理解するための最低限の意味が分かるように努めた。
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