It’s a short story written by
the world renowned writer O. Henry. The main characters of the story are
Behrman, a painter, Johnsy and her friend Sue, both run a studio. The story
happens in a little district west of Washington, where the streets have run
crazy and broken themselves into small stripes called “places”. These “places”
make strange angles and curves. The street is a copy of the old Greenwich
Village. So the art people have valuable possibilities there. Also the rents
were low, so art people came prowling from different parts and became a “colony”.
Sue and Jhonsy had their studio
at the top of a squatty, three-story brick. Among them one was from Maine; the
other from California. They had meet at
the table of an eight street hotel, and found their tastes in art, chicory
salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio result.
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. Mr. Pneumonia smote
Jhonsy; 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.
One Morning doctor invited Sue into his
room and said “she has only one chance in ten” and that chance is her want to
live. Jhonsy has made up her mind that she’s not going to get well. Doctor then
said “If she makes herself believe that there are better days ahead, then she
has one-in-five chance, instead of one in ten.
After doctor had gone, Sue went
into the room where Jhonsy was lying. She saw her looking through the windows
and counting backwards. “Twelve”, she said and little later “eleven”, and then
“ten”, and “nine”, and then “eight” and “seven”, almost together. Jhonsy was
actually counting the fallings ivy leaves. She believes that when the last one
falls she must go. Sue said there is nothing that old leaf could do with her
getting well and she went out to meet Mr. Behrman.
Behrman was a painter who lived on
the ground floor beneath them. He is in his early sixties. Behrman was a
failure in art. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never
yet begun it. When Sue entered his room, he was drinking gin and talking about
his coming masterpiece. Sue told him about Jhonsy’s fancy. Sue and Behrman went
upstairs and showed the ivy vine to Behrman. They looked at each other for a
movement without speaking.
Every day morning Jhonsy looked
through the window to see whether the last leaf has fallen. But the last ivy
leaf was still there. Jhonsy would lie for a long time looking at it. The
doctor came one day and said, “she is recovering fastly”. “With good nursing
she will recover”.
The climax of this story “The last leaf”
makes O. Henry one of the greatest short story writers in the world. He ends
the story with the death of Mr. Behrman due to pneumonia. Jhonsy looking out of
the window at the last ivy leaf: the reason why it never fluttered or moved
when the wind blew? Because it was
Behrman’s masterpiece- He painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.
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