The Last Leaf

O. Henry

IN A little district west of Washington Square the streets are divided into small
strips called “places”. These “places” make strange angles and curves.
Many artists came to this nice old Greenwich Village. They were looking for
north-facing windows with nice light and nice attics and low rents. Soon there
were so many artists that they became a “colony”.
Sue and Johnsy had a studio at the top of a small brick house that had three
storeys. “Johnsy” was a short form of Joanna. One of the girls was from Maine; the
other from California. They had met at a restaurant which had cheap menus and
they found that they had the same taste in art, food and clothes; this was the reason
why they soon decided to rent a studio together.
That was in May. In November, a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors
called Pneumonia, came to the colony. This stranger touched one person here and
another person there with his icy finger. On the east side of the city this killer
strode boldly, killing many people. But where the girls lived, he walked more
slowly because of the maze of narrow “places.”
Mr. Pneumonia was not at all a chivalrous old gentleman. A weak little
woman with blood made cold by the California winds was not able to fight against
this horrible old man. And so Johnsy became ill; and she lay, almost not moving,
on her painted iron bed. She was looking through the small windows in her room
at the side of the next brick house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway by making a
gesture with his gray eyebrow.
“She is very ill. Maybe she has only a ten percent chance to continue to live,”
he said, as he shook his thermometer. “The only chance she has is if she wants to
live. If people do not want to live and only think about the undertaker, doctors
cannot help them and all our medicines look silly.
Your little lady has decided that she is not going to get well. Does she not
have any nice dreams?”
“She—she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day,” said Sue.
“Painting?—that is crazy! Does she dream of anything better—a man, for
instance?”
“A man?” said Sue, with a strange sound in her voice. “Is a man worth living
for? No, doctor, there is no man.”
“Well, I am not sure I can help,” said the doctor. “I will make every effort to
do all that science is capable of. But whenever my patient begins to count the
carriages in her funeral procession, I subtract 50 percent from the chances that
medicines can help. If you can make her ask just one question about the new winter
styles in clothes, for example, I will promise you that her chances to survive will be
fifty percent, instead of ten percent.”
 After the doctor left Sue went into her room and cried into a napkin until it
was drenched. Then she strode into Johnsy’s room with her drawing board,
whistling music.
Johnsy lay, almost not moving under the blankets. She was looking out of
the window. Sue stopped whistling because she thought that Johnsy was asleep.
She picked up her board and began making a drawing to illustrate a
magazine story. Young artists must make their career in the Art world by drawing
pictures for magazine stories, the same way that young authors must write
magazine stories to make their career in Literature.
As Sue was drawing a pair of beautiful trousers and a monocle on the figure
of the hero (he was a cowboy from Idaho who was riding a horse), she heard a low
sound. This low sound she heard several times. She went quickly to the bed.
Johnsy’s eyes were open wide. She was looking out of 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 of the window with curiosity. What was she counting? She
could only see a bare, gray yard and the blank side of the brick house that was
twenty feet away. An old ivy vine, which was twisted and whose roots were dying,
was growing up the side of brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had taken its
leaves from its vine. Its thin branches, which were almost bare, were holding on to
the old bricks.
“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 Susie.’
“Leaves. On the ivy. 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 such nonsense,” complained Sue, trying to smile. “What
connection have old ivy leaves to do with your health? And you used to love that
ivy so, you silly girl. Don’t be depressed. You know, the doctor told me this
morning that your chances of getting well very soon were very good, at least ninety
percent! That means you are as safe as when we are riding on a tram in New York
or we are walking past a new building. Try to eat some soup now, and let Susie go
back to her drawing. I need to sell my drawing to the editor so that I can buy wine
for you, my sick child, and meat for my greedy self!”
“You need not buy any more wine,” said Johnsy. Her eyes were still looking
out the window. “There goes another. No, I don’t want any soup. There are now
only four leaves. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I will also
go.”
“Johnsy, dear,” said Sue, bending over her, “will you promise me that you
will close your eyes and not look out of the window until I have finished my
drawings? I must give these drawings to the editor tomorrow. I need the light from
the window so I cannot close the curtains.”
 “Can you not draw in the other room?” asked Johnsy, coldly.
“I want to be here by you,” said Sue. “Also, I don’t want you to continue to
look at those silly ivy leaves.”
“Tell me as soon as you have finished,” said Johnsy and she closed her eyes.
She was lying white and still as a fallen statue. “I want to see the last leaf fall. I am
tired of waiting. I’m tired of thinking. I want to let go of everything, and go sailing
down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.”
“Try to sleep,” said Sue. “I must call Behrman from the flat below. I want
him to be my model for an old miner. I will not be gone for more than a minute.
Don’t try to move until I come back.”
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the floor beneath them. He was
over sixty years old and had a beard like Michael Angelo that was curly; he had a
head like a satyr and the body of a goblin. Behrman was a failure in art. He had
been painting for forty years. He had always wanted to paint a masterpiece but had
never begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except sometimes a small
painting for a company or for advertising. He earned a little money by working as
a model for the young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a
professional model. He drank too much gin and still talked of the masterpiece he
was going to paint one day. Most of the time he was an angry little old man, who
laughed at softness in anyone; but he thought of himself as a special guard dog
who was there to protect the two young artists in the studio above.
When Sue went to see Behrman in his small dark room he smelled strongly
of alcohol. In one corner there was a blank canvas on an easel. It had been waiting
there for twenty-five years; it was waiting to be Behrman’s masterpiece. Sue told
him about Johnsy’s idea; that Johnsy thought she was going to die when the last
leaf fell from the ivy. Sue told Behrman that she believed it might be true, because
Johnsy really was as light and weak as a leaf herself.
Old Behrman, with his red eyes clearly sobbing, shouted in anger and at
such silly words.
“What!” he cried. “Are there people in the world who are so silly that they
will die because a leaf drops from a silly vine? I have not heard of such a stupid
thing. No, I will not be a model for your miner. Why do you allow that silly
business to come into Johnsy’s brain? Oh, that poor little Miss Johnsy.”
“She is very ill and weak,” said Sue, “and the fever has made her think of
death and given her other strange ideas. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not
want to be my model, you needn’t. But I think you are a horrid old—old fool.”
“You are just like a woman!” shouted Behrman. “Who said I will not be your
model? Go. I will come with you. For half an hour I have been trying to say that I
am ready to be your model. God! This is not a room in which a person so good as
Miss Johnsy should be living when she is ill. Some day I will paint a masterpiece,
and we shall all go away. God! Yes.”
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the curtain down
and asked Behrman to go into the other room. In there, with fear they looked out
of the window at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without
speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling and it was mixed with snow.
 Behrman, in his old blue shirt and looking like a miner sat on an upturned
kettle which they were using instead of a rock.

When Sue woke up after sleeping for an hour the next morning, she found
Johnsy with dark, wide-open eyes looking at the green curtain.
“Pull it up; I want to see outside,” she ordered, in a whisper.
Sue unhappily obeyed.
But look! After the heavy rain and strong winds that had continued through
the long night, there was still one ivy leaf on the brick wall! It was the last on the
vine. It was still dark green near its stem, but its edges had a weak yellow color,
and it was hanging bravely from a branch about twenty feet above the ground.
“It is the last one,” said Johnsy. “I thought it would surely fall during the
night. I heard the wind. It will fall today, and I will die at the same time.”
“Dear, dear!” said Sue, and she placed her tired head on the pillow, “think
of me, if you do not want to think of yourself. What would I do without you?”
But Johnsy did not answer. The loneliest thing in all the world is a soul when
it is preparing to go on its mysterious, far journey. Johnsy’s idea seemed to get
more and more strong as she became more and more weak.
The day passed slowly on, and even through the gray evening light they
could see the single ivy leaf with its stem against the wall. And then, when the night
began, the north wind again grew strong. The rain was still beating against the
windows and water was dripping from the low roof.
When it was light enough Johnsy ordered Sue to lift the curtain.
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 soup on the stove.
“I’ve been a bad girl, Susie,” said Johnsy. “Something has made that last leaf
stay there to show me how wicked I have been. It is a sin to want to die. Please
bring me a little soup, and some milk with a little wine in it, and—no; bring me a
mirror first. Also, please place some pillows around me, and I will sit up and watch
you cook.”
An hour later she said:
“Susie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples.”

The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue went into the hallway to see him
before he left.
“Already fifty percent!” said the doctor, taking Sue’s thin, shaking hand in
his. “If you take care of her, she will be healthy again. And now I must see another
case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is; he is some kind of an artist, I believe.
He has pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack of pneumonia is
very bad. There is no hope for him; but will go to the hospital today so that he will
be more comfortable.”
 The next day the doctor said to Sue: “She’s out of danger. You’ve won. All
she needs now is good food and you taking care of her, that’s all.”
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay. Johnsy was
happily knitting a very blue and very useless scarf, and Sue put one arm around her
and her pillows.
“I have something to tell you, my little white mouse,” she said. “Mr.
Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill for only two days.
The janitor found him two days ago in the morning; he was in his room downstairs
and in a lot of pain. His shoes and clothes were very wet and icy cold. They could
not understand where he had been on such a terrible night. And then they found a
lantern that was still lit, a ladder, some paintbrushes, and a palette with green and
yellow colors on it. Look out of the window, my dear, at the last ivy leaf on the
wall. Didn’t you ask yourself why it never moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling,
it’s Behrman’s masterpiece—he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.”