Doctor’s Observation

The last leaf

-O.Henry

Q.1 Why did artists flock to the Greenwich Village?

ANS: The houses in Greenwich Village had Dutch attics (a space or room inside or partly inside the roof of a building) and eighteenth century gables (the triangular upper part of a wall at the end of a ridged roof). These offered the ideal setting for budding (becoming larger as part of normal growth) painters. Apart from this, the rent there was affordable for the painters who were still struggling in their careers.

Q2. What brought the doctor to the house of Sue and Johnsy?

ANS: Pneumonia had struck Greenwich Village. Johnsy was down with the disease. Her frail ( weak and delicate.) body was unable to cope with the severity of the attack. She lay in her bed miserable, forlorn (pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely ) and delirious (in an acutely disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence; affected by delirium). Her condition was deteriorating fast. Alarmed at her friend’s plight, Sue had asked the doctor to come and examine Johnsy.

Q3. What was the doctor’s observation?

ANS: The doctor examined the ailing (in poor health ) Johnsy. He was not sanguine about her ability to fight off the virulent (extremely severe or harmful in its effects ) pneumonia which had virtually dragged her to the brink (the extreme edge). He conveyed this to Sue, but assured her that Johnsy still had 10% chance of survival. He promised to give the best medicine, but regretfully said that the patient’s mental submission to the infection was undermining her body’s capacity to fight back. He advised Sue to do everything possible to inject some hope and willpower back to Johnsy. If this happened, the efficacy of the medication would be doubled, he assured. He suggested Sue to explore if Johnsy had any un-fulfilled desire that could be met to make her recover her lost mental strength.

Q4. How did Sue react to the doctor’s advice?

ANS: Clearly, the doctor’s grim warning about the Johnsy’s slim chances of survival unsettled Sue. She was in a quandary (a state of uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation)