h e L a s t L e a f

IN A SMALL PART OF THE CITY WEST OF

Washington Square, the streets have gone wild. They turn in different

directions. They are broken into small pieces called “places.” One

street goes across itself one or two times. A painter once discovered

something possible and valuable about this street. Suppose a painter

had some painting materials for which he had not paid. Suppose he

had no money. Suppose a man came to get the money. The man might

walk down that street and suddenly meet himself coming back, without

having received a cent!

This part of the city is called Greenwich Village. And to old

Greenwich Village the painters soon came. Here they found rooms

they like, with good light and at a low cost.

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Sue and Johnsy lived at the top of a building with three floors. One

of these young women came from Maine, the other from California.

They had met at a restaurant on Eighth Street. There they discovered

that they liked the same kind of art, the same kind of food, and the same

kind of clothes. So they decided to live and work together.

That was in the spring.

Toward winter a cold stranger entered Greenw

O. H e n r y

Then she walked into Johnsy’s room. She carried some of her painting

materials, and she was singing.

Johnsy lay there, very thin and very quiet. Her face was turned

toward the window. Sue stopped singing, thinking that Johnsy was

asleep.

Sue began to work. As she worked she heard a low sound, again

and again. She went quickly to the bedside.

Johnsy’s eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window

and counting—counting back.

“Twelve,” she said; and a little later, “Eleven”; and then, “Ten,”

and, “Nine”; and then, “Eight,” and, “Seven,” almost together.

Sue looked out the window. What was there to count? There was

only the side wall of the next house, a short distance away. The wall

had no window. An old, old tree grew against the wall. The cold breath

of winter had already touched it. Almost all its leaves had fallen from

its dark branches.

“What is it, dear?” asked Sue.

“Six,” said Johnsy, in a voice still lower. “They’re falling faster now.

Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It hurt my head to count

them. But now it’s easy. There goes another one. There are only five

now.”

“Five what, dear? Tell your Sue.”

“Leaves. On the tree. 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 of such a thing,” said Sue. “It doesn’t have any

sense in it. What does an old tree have to do with you? Or with your

getting well? And you used to love that tree so much. Don’t be a little

fool. The doctor told me your chances for getting well. He told me this

morning. He said you had very good chances! Try to eat a little now.

And then I’ll go back to work. And then I can sell my picture, and

then I can buy something more for you to eat to make you strong.”

“You don’t have to buy anything for me,” said Johnsy. She still

looked out the window. “There goes another. No, I don’t want anything

to eat. Now there are four. I want to see the last one fall before

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night. Then I’ll go, too.”

“Johnsy, dear,” said Sue, “will you promise me to close your eyes

and keep them closed? Will you promise not to look out the window

until I finish working? I must have this picture ready tomorrow. I need

the light; I can’t cover the window.”

“Couldn’t you work in the other room?” asked Johnsy coldly.

“I’d rather be here by you,” said Sue. “And I don’t want you to

look at those leaves.”

“Tell me as soon as you have finished,” said Johnsy. She closed

her eyes and lay white and still. “Because I want to see the last leaf fall.

I have done enough waiting. I have done enough thinking. I want to go

sailing down, down, like one of those leaves.”

“Try to sleep,” said Sue. “I must call Behrman to come up here. I

want to paint a man in this picture, and I’ll make him look like Behrman.

I won’t be gone a minute. Don’t try to move till I come back.”

Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the first floor of their

house. He was past sixty. He had had no success as a painter. For forty

years he had painted, without ever painting a good picture. He had

always talked of painting a great picture, a masterpiece, but he had

never yet started it.

He got a little money by letting others paint pictures of him. He

drank too much. He still talked of his great masterpiece. And he

believed that it was his special duty to do everything possible to help Sue

and Johnsy.

Sue found him in his dark room, and she knew that he had been

drinking. She could smell it. She told him about Johnsy and the leaves

on the vine. She said that she was afraid that Johnsy would indeed sail

down, down like the leaf. Her hold on the world was growing weaker.

Old Behrman shouted his anger over such an idea.

“What!” he cried. “Are there such fools? Do people die because

leaves drop off a tree? I have not heard of such a thing. No, I will not

come up and sit while you make a picture of me. Why do you allow

her to think such a thing? That poor little Johnsy!”

“She is very sick and weak,” said Sue. “The sickness has put these

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strange ideas into her mind. Mr. Behrman, if you won’t come, you

won’t. But I don’t think you’re very nice.”

“This is like a woman!” shouted Behrman. “Who said I will not

come? Go. I come with you. For half an hour I have been trying to say

that I will come. God! This is not any place for someone so good as

Johnsy to lie sick. Some day I shall paint my masterpiece, and we shall

all go away from here. God! Yes.”

Johnsy was sleeping when they went up. Sue covered the window,

and took Behrman into the other room. There they looked out the window

fearfully at the tree. Then they looked at each other for a moment

without speaking. A cold rain was falling, with a little snow in it too.

Behrman sat down, and Sue began to paint.

She worked through most of the night.

In the morning, after an hour’s sleep, she went to Johnsy’s bedside.

Johnsy with wide-open eyes was looking toward the window. “I

want to see,” she told Sue.

Sue took the cover from the window.

But after the beating rain and the wild wind that had not stopped

through the whole night, there still was one leaf to be seen against the

wall. It was the last on the tree. It was still dark green near the branch.

But at the edges it was turning yellow with age. There it was hanging

from a branch nearly 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 shall die at the

same time.”

“Dear, dear Johnsy!” said Sue. “Think of me, if you won’t think

of yourself. What would I do?”

But Johnsy did not answer. The most lonely thing in the world is

a soul when it is preparing to go on its far journey. The ties that held

her to friendship and to earth were breaking, one by one.

The day slowly passed. As it grew dark, they could still see the

leaf hanging from its branch against the wall. And then, as the night

came, the north wind began again to blow. The rain still beat against

the windows.

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When it was light enough the next morning, Johnsy again commanded

that she be allowed to see.

The leaf was still there.

Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to

Sue, who was cooking something for her to eat.

“I’ve been a bad girl, Sue,” said Johnsy. “Something has made that

last leaf stay there to show me how bad I was. It is wrong to want to die.

I’ll try to eat now. But first bring me a looking-glass, so that I can see

myself. And then I’ll sit up and watch you cook.”

An hour later she said, “Sue, some day I hope to paint the Bay of

Naples.”

The doctor came in the afternoon. Sue followed him into the

hall outside Johnsy’s room to talk to him.

“The chances are good,” said the doctor. He took Sue’s thin, shaking

hand in his. “Give her good care, and she’ll get well. And now I must

see another sick person in this house. His name is Behrman. A painter,

I believe. Pneumonia, too. Mike is an old, weak man, and he is very ill.

There is no hope for him. But we take him to the hospital today. We’ll

make it as easy for him as we can.”

The next day the doctor said to Sue: “She’s safe. You have done

it. Food and care now—that’s all.”

And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay. She

put one arm around her.

“I have something to tell you,” she said. “Mr. Behrman died of

pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. Someone

found him on the morning of the first day, in his room. He was helpless

with pain.”

“His shoes and his clothes were wet and as cold as ice. Everyone

wondered where he had been. The night had been so cold and wild.

“And then they found some things. There was a light that he had

taken outside. And there were his materials for painting. There was

paint, green paint and yellow paint. And—

“Look out the window, dear, at the last leaf on the wall. Didn’t

you wonder why it never moved when the wind was blowing? Oh, my

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dear, it is Behrman’s great masterpiece—he painted it there the night

that the last leaf fell.”