Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was over sixty years old, had the body of an elf, and a long beard curling down from his chin. Behrman was a failure as an artist. For forty years he had tried to paint, but he had never gotten one job to illustrate even a simple magazine story. He had always been about to paint a masterpiece, but had never started it. He earned a little as a model for young artists in the colony who could not pay for a professional model. He drank too much gin and always talked of the great masterpiece he was going to paint someday. To many people, he was a fierce little old man who scoffed at softness or sentiment in anyone. But he protected the two young women artists in the studio above him like a guard dog.
Sue found Mr. Behrman smelling strongly of gin in his dimly lit den below. In one corner of the room was a blank canvas on an easel; it had been waiting there for 25 years for the old man to start the creation of his masterpiece. Sue told him of Johnsy’s irrational fantasy about the ivy on the wall, and how she feared Johnsy would lose her hold on life when the last leaf lost its hold on the vine.
His eyes red, old Behrman shouted his contempt for such idiotic imaginings. "Well!" he cried. "I can’t believe there are such foolish people in the world that would die because a leaf drops off a stupid vine. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And no! I will not be a model for your hermit! Why are you allowing these silly ideas to come into her head? Poor little Miss Johnsy."
"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind dark and full of strange ideas. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you don’t have to. But I think you are a horrid old man."
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I wouldn’t pose? Go on. I’ll come with you. I’ve been trying to tell you for half an hour that I was ready to pose. For heaven’s sake, Miss Johnsy shouldn’t be lying sick in a drafty old place like this. Someday, I will paint my masterpiece, and we shall all leave here for someplace warm and sunny."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the windowsill and motioned Behrman into the other room. They peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine, and looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on a large upside-down waste basket, which stood in for a rock. He stayed and posed for Sue late into the stormy evening, and then left.
When Sue awoke the next morning, she found Johnsy with wide-open eyes staring at the drawn shade.
"Pull it up, I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily, Sue obeyed.
"Johnsy, look!" cried Sue.
After the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had raged through the entire night, standing out against the brick wall was one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of death and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.
"It’s 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."
"Oh, Johnsy," said Sue, leaning her worn face down toward the head on the pillow, "think of me, if you won’t think of yourself. What would I do without you?"
But Johnsy did not answer. The loneliest thing in the world is a soul when it is getting ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The idea seemed to possess Johnsy more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth untangled.
The day wore away, and even through the twilight, the two women could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. But then, with the coming of night, the north wind blew fierce again, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low eaves.
When it was light enough, Johnsy demanded that the shade be raised.
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 broth over the gas stove.
"I’ve been a bad girl, Sue," she said. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. I’d like a little broth now and some milk with a bit of wine in it, if you don’t mind. And I’ll sit up in bed and watch you cook."
An hour later she said, "Sue, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
Just then, the doctor arrived, and Sue made an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
"Johnsy’s got a good chance now," said the doctor, taking Sue’s thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing, she’ll be fine. And now I must see another case downstairs. Behrman, his name is—some kind of artist, I believe. He has pneumonia too. He is an old, weak man, and there is no hope for him. But he’s going to the hospital this morning, so he’ll be more comfortable."
That evening, before the sun set, Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue woolen scarf, and put one arm around her.
"I have something to tell you, Johnsy," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. The janitor found him this morning 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 dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lit; a ladder; some scattered brushes; and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it. Look out the window at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece. He painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."