O Henry
In a neighborhood just west of Washington Square, the streets all stretch out horizontally and break up into small "alleyways". These "alleyways" take odd turns. Sometimes a street itself crosses more than once. Once a painter realized that this street had a superiority: if a bill collector came to this street to demand money for paints, paper and canvas, he would suddenly find himself empty-handed and return the way he came, without getting a penny for his bill!
So it wasn't long before quite a few painters groped their way to this quaint old Greenwich Village, seeking north-facing windows, 18th-century peaked hill walls, Dutch lofts, and low rents. Then they bought some waxed wine glasses and a fondue pot or two from Sixth Street, and the area became the "arts district.
Sue and Jonsey's studio was on the top floor of a short, wide, three-story brick house. "Josie" was Joanna's nickname. One was from Maine, the other from California. They had met over a meal at the Delmonico's on Eighth Street and, realizing they shared a passion for art, lettuce salads and fashion, had rented the studio.
That was in May. By November, a cold, invisible, uninvited visitor, whom doctors call "pneumonia," was stalking the art district, touching here and there with his icy fingertips. At the east end of the square, the vandal strides brazenly, knocking down dozens of victims at a time, but in the maze of narrow, moss-covered "alleyways," his pace slows.
Mr. Pneumonia is not your idea of a chivalrous old gentleman. A weak woman, thin and bloodless from the California westerly winds, should not have been the target of this red-fisted, short-breathing old man's blows. However, Josie was struck; she lay motionless on a painted iron bed, staring out the tiny Dutch glass window at the empty wall of the brick house across the street.
One morning, the busy doctor raised his shaggy, gray-white eyebrows and called Sue out into the hallway.
"The way I see it, there's only one-tenth of a hope of recovery from her illness," he said as he flung down the column of mercury in his thermometer, "and that one hope is the thought of her wanting to live. Some people don't seem to want to live, and like to take care of the undertaker's business so much that it simply renders the whole medical profession helpless. Your friend has concluded that she is not going to be cured. Is there something on her mind?"
"She - she hopes to paint the bay of Naples someday." Sue said.
"Painting? -- what nonsense! Does she have anything in her head that she should think about again and again - a man, for instance?"
"A man?" Sue tugged on her voice like a harmonica, "Is a man worth - no, Doctor, there's no such thing."
"The full force of what can be attained to treat her. But if my patient starts counting the number of wagons that will take her out of mourning, I'll have to reduce the effectiveness of the treatment by fifty percent. If you can think of a question or two that will interest her in the fashionable style of winter coat sleeves, then I can assure you that I can improve the chances of curing her from one in ten to one in five."" "After the doctor left, Sue went into the studio and cried a Japanese napkin into a wet ball. Later she walked into Jonsey's house with a drawing pad in her hand, pretending to be in high spirits and whistling jazz tunes out of her mouth.
Joncie lay, her face toward the window, her body motionless under the covers. Sue thought she was asleep and hurried to stop whistling.
She set up her drawing pad and began to draw a pen illustration for the story in the magazine. Young painters had to illustrate stories in magazines in order to pave the way to art, which in turn young writers had to write in order to pave the way to literature.
Sue was in the middle of drawing a pair of fashionable breeches worn at horse fairs and a piece of monocle on the main character of the story, an Idaho rancher, when she suddenly heard a low voice repeated several times. She walked quickly to the bed.
Joncie's eyes were wide open. She looked out the window and counted ...... backwards.
"Twelve," she counted, pausing for a moment to add, "Eleven," then "Ten," and "Nine " and then "8" and "7" almost simultaneously.
Sue looked out of the window with concern. What was there to count there? Just an empty, gloomy yard with the empty wall of a brick house 20 feet away. A terribly old ivy, its withered roots tangled together, its branches climbing halfway up the brick wall. The cold winds of fall had blown almost all the leaves off the vine, and almost all the bare branches were still wrapped around the peeling brick.
"What is it, dear?" Sue asked.
"Six," Josie whispered almost in a whisper, "They're falling faster and faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred pieces. My head hurt from counting. But now it's better to count. Another slice has fallen off. There are only five pieces left."
"Five pieces of what, honey. Tell that to your Sudie."
"Leaves. On the ivy. By the time the last leaf falls, it's time for me to go. I knew about this three days ago. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Hmph, I've never heard such foolishness before," said Sue, quite unimpressed, "What do those broken ivy leaves have to do with whether you're well or not? Didn't you used to love this tree? You naughty boy. Don't talk foolishly. See, the doctor was telling me this morning that the chances of your being cured quickly are,-let me say what he said word for word,-he said it was ninety percent. Oh, that's almost as sure as we can be riding a trolley or walking through a new building in New York. Have some soup, and let Sudie go and paint her picture so she can sell it to Mr. Editor for money to buy some claret for her sick child and some pork chops for herself to quench her thirst."
"You don't need to buy wine," said Josie, her eyes fixed straight out of the window, "another piece has fallen. No, I don't want soup. There are only four slices left. I want to wait and see that last leaf fall before it gets dark. Then I'm going to go too."
"Josie, honey," Sue said, leaning down to her, "promise you'll close your eyes and not look out the window until I'm done drawing, okay? I have to turn in these illustrations tomorrow. I need the light, or I'll pull down the curtains." "Can't you go into that room and draw?" Jonsey asked coldly.
"I'd like to stay right in front of you," Sue said, "and besides, I don't want you looking at those pesky ivy leaves all the time."
"Call me as soon as you're done drawing," Jonsey said, and closed her eyes. She was pale and motionless, lying on the bed like a statue fallen across the floor. "Because I wanted to see that last leaf fall, and I got tired of waiting and thinking. I wanted to get rid of everything and float down, float down, like a poor tired leaf."
"You get some sleep," said Sue, "I've got to go downstairs and get Belmont up here to model for me that reclusive old miner. I'll be back in a little while. Don't move until I get back."
Old Belmen was a painter who lived on the ground floor of their building. He was over 60 and had a beard like Michelangelo's statue of Moses, which grew over the head of a forest god that looked like a half-man, half-beast and flowed curly over a brat-like body. Belmont was a failed painter. He had been working with a brush for forty years, and was still far from touching the dress of the goddess of art. He was always saying that he was about to paint his masterpiece, but until now he had not put pen to paper. For several years he had painted nothing but the occasional commercial and such. He earned a little money by modeling for young painters in the art district who were too poor to afford professional models. He drank without restraint and often talked about the masterpiece he was going to paint. Other than that, he is a fiery little old man who despises the warmth of others, but sees himself as a watchdog dedicated to protecting the two young women painters in the studio upstairs.
Sue found the mouth-breathing, booze-smelling Belmont downstairs in his dimly lit dooryard. A blank canvas stretched on an easel in the corner of the room had been waiting for that masterpiece for 25 years, but not even a line. Sue told him about Jonsey's ramblings, and said she was afraid that Jonsey, thin and tender as a leaf herself, and with her lingering attachment to the world growing fainter and fainter, might actually drift away from the world.
Old Belmont, whose two reddened eyes were evidently weeping against the wind, scoffed very contemptuously at this silly nonsense.
"What," he cried, "could there really be anyone in the world so stupid as to want to die just because those damned ivy leaves fell off? I've never heard of such a strange thing. No, I'm not going to model for your reclusive miner's fool. Why do you let her ramble on? Alas, poor Miss Jonesy."
"She's very sick and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has made her so dizzy that her head is full of queer thoughts. Well, Mr. Belmont, if you don't want to model for me, so be it; I see you're a nasty old--old abettor."
"You're simply too matronly!" Belmont shouted, "Who says I don't want to be a model? Come on, I'll go with you. Haven't I been talking about being willing to model for you for half a day? Good heavens, such a fine girl as Miss Jonsey really ought not to lie sick in a place like this. One of these days I'm going to paint a masterpiece and we can all move out.
Surely!"
After they went upstairs, Jonsey was asleep. Sue pulled the curtains down, all the way over the window sill, and gestured for Belmont to go into the next room. There they looked fearfully at the ivy outside the window. Then they were silent and looked at each other for a while. A cold rain with snowflakes fell incessantly. Belmont, in his old blue shirt, sat on an iron kettle that had been turned over to act as a rock, pretending to be a reclusive miner.
The next morning, Sue woke up after only an hour's sleep, and she saw Josie's lifeless eyes gazing wide open at the drawn-down green curtains.
"Pull the curtains up, I need to see." She ordered in a low voice.
Sue wearily complied.
However, look! After a long night of wind and rain, there was still a vine leaf hanging on the brick wall. It was the last leaf left on the ivy. It was still dark green near the stem, but the jagged edges of the leaf had withered and yellowed, and it hung proudly on a vine branch more than twenty feet off the ground.
"This is the last leaf." Jonsey said, "I thought it must have fallen last night. I heard the wind. Today it will surely fall, and I will die."
"Gee, gee," Sue said to her as she drew her tired face close to the edge of the pillow, "if you won't think of yourself, think of me. What am I going to do?"
But Jonsey would not answer. She is the loneliest person in the world when a soul is preparing to go on that mysterious, distant journey to death. After the relationships that had bound her to friendship and the earth had faded, that rhapsody of hers grew stronger and stronger.
The day passed at last, and even in the twilight they could see the lone leaf of the vine still clinging to the branch against the wall. Then the arrival of night brought a howling north wind, and the rain kept tapping on the windows as it cascaded down the low-hanging Dutch eaves.
It was just after dawn when Josie relentlessly ordered the curtains to be drawn.
The vine leaves were still there.
Joncie lay looking at it for a long time. Then she greeted Sue who was making her chicken soup on the gas stove.
"I've been a bad girl, Sue Dee," said Josie, "and Providence has left that last vine leaf there to prove how bad I've been. It's a sin to want to die. You will bring me some chicken soup now, and some milk mixed with wine, and--no, first a little mirror, and a pillow cushion, and I will sit up and watch you cook."
After an hour she said, "Sudie, I hope to paint the bay of Naples some day."
The doctor came in the afternoon and as he left, Sue made an excuse to run down the hallway.
"Fifty percent hopeful." The doctor said as he took Sue's thin trembling hand in his own, "Take good care you'll make it. Now I have to see another patient downstairs. His name is Belmont-I hear he's a painter, too. Pneumonia, too. He is too old and weak to be very ill. He can't be cured; he's going to be taken to the hospital today to make him more comfortable."
The next day, the doctor told Sue, "She's out of danger, you made it. Now all that's left is nutrition and care."
In the afternoon Sue ran to Jonsey's bed, where Jonsey was lying, peacefully knitting a useless dark blue woolen shawl. Sue wrapped one arm around her with a pillow.
"I've got something to tell you, little one," she said, "Mr. Belmont died of pneumonia in the hospital today. He had only been ill for two days. The first morning the concierge found him downstairs in his own room in pain and unable to move. His shoes and clothes were all wet and cold. They couldn't figure out where he had gone that miserable night. Then they found an unextinguished lantern, a ladder that had moved out of its place, a few brushes thrown all over the floor, a palette with green and yellow paint on it, and - look out of the window, my dear, look at the last vine leaf on the wall. Haven't you ever wondered why it never shakes or moves when the wind blows so hard? Alas, my dear, it is this leaf that is Belmont's masterpiece-it was on the night the last leaf fell that he painted it there."
O Henry (1862 a 1910), a famous American short story writer, is known for his humorous writing style and ingenious ideas, and his stories often have unexpected endings. The Last Leaf is one of his masterpieces, which explores the meaning of life despite some pathos.