Read Part 1
Two young artists, Sue and Joanna, had their studio at the top of a three-story brick house. In November, Joanna got sick with pneumonia. She was lying on her bed, looking through the small window at the blank side of the next brick house.
One morning the doctor called Sue into the hallway. "She has one chance in-let us say, ten," he said, as he shook the thermometer. "And that chance is for her to want to live. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She-she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day," said Sue.
"Paint?!" exclaimed the doctor. "I will do all that science can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the healing power of medicines."
After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried. Then she walked into Joanna's room with her drawing board. She saw Joanna lying with her face toward the window and thought she was asleep.
She arranged her board and began a drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Suddenly she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.
Joanna's eyes were open wide. She was looking out 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.
What was there to count? There was only a bare, boring yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine with hardly any leaves on it climbed half way up the brick wall.
"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.
"Six," said Joanna, 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?"
"Leaves. On the ivy vine. 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 nonsense," Sue protested. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? The doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were ten to one! Try to take some broth now, and let me go back to my drawing."
"No, I don't want any broth," said Joanna, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."
"Joanna, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by tomorrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down. I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."
"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Joanna, closing her eyes, "because I want to see the last one fall."
"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must ask Behrman to be my model for the picture. Don't try to move until I come back."
Continue reading Part 2
Read Part 2
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was over sixty. He had a beard curling down from the head. Behrman was a failure in art. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. He earned a little by serving as a model to young artists who could not pay the price of a professional. He always tried to protect the two young artists in the studio above from anyone who tried to harm them.
Sue found Behrman in his dimly lighted room below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Joanna's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, die.
Old Behrman got mad. "What?!" he cried. "I've never heard of such a thing. Oh poor little Miss Joanna. Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all go away."
Joanna was sleeping when they came upstairs. Sue took Behrman into the other room. There they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mixed with snow.
When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Joanna staring at the drawn green shade.
"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
Amazingly, after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had continued all through the night, there was yet one ivy leaf hanging against the brick wall.
"It is the last one," said Joanna. "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!" said Sue, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?" But Joanna did not answer.
The day was almost over, but even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. At night they could hear the north wind and the rain beating against the windows.
When it was light enough Joanna commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there.
Joanna lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called Sue.
"I've been a bad girl, Sue," said Joanna. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wrong I was. You may bring me a little broth now."
An hour later she said, "Sue, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
The doctor came in the afternoon. "Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another patient I have downstairs. His name is Behrman-some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital today to be made more comfortable."
The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You've won. Nutrition and care now-that's all."
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Joanna lay, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
"I have something to tell you, Joanna," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. He was found on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a terrible night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and-look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder 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."
