Near Washington Square in New York City lies the quarter called Greenwich Village. There the turns and twists abound, and the winding alleys so interlace that a man comes back to the place he started walking from without knowing it.
The artists discovered the possibilities of this quarter — spacious rooms, large windows, and old brick houses cheap to rent that give their paintings a lovely local color — and they settled it, after naming it "the colony of the people of art."
There Sue and Johnsy met, and they took rooms on the second floor of an old brick house after they had become friends. And although Johnsy (a diminutive of the name Joanna) was from the province of Maine and Sue from California, they found their tastes alike in food, in ways of living, and in artistic theories.
Spring passed with the two living together, and likewise the season of summer. But in November pneumonia spread through the quarter, and Johnsy, with her slender body, was among those touched by the disease's icy, hateful fingers; she spent her days in her plain iron bed, looking through the window at the wall of the neighboring brick house.
After the doctor came out of her sickroom he said to her friend Sue, shaking the thermometer in his hand: "The measure of hope for her recovery does not exceed one in ten. And that faint hope is the measure of her love of life and her attachment to it, for love of life is the most effective medicine for the sick. But your friend has surrendered to death and despaired of life and of recovery. Has she nothing to live for? Some wish she would like to fulfill?"
"She... she would like to paint the Bay of Naples someday."
"Painting? Hm... is she thinking of anything worth attention? A man, for instance?"
Sue answered with distaste:
"A man... is a man worth... no, there is nothing of that."
"There lies her weak point. If she had someone to live for... In any case I shall try my best and spend all my science, but when a patient begins thinking about who will walk behind her coffin, I can be sure of losing half the power of the treatment. Listen, my girl: if you can get your companion to talk — even with a single question — about the fashions of the coming winter, the measure of hope in her recovery rises to one in five instead of one in ten."
Sue went back to the studio downcast, took her drawing materials from it, and went into
the bedroom humming a merry popular tune.
She stopped singing when she thought Johnsy asleep with her face toward the window, and then began to draw. She was drawing an illustration for one of the story magazines — for the people of art at the start of their careers draw pictures for the magazines, just as the people of letters at the start of theirs write stories for those same magazines.
Sue was absorbed in her work when she heard a faint, monotonous sound running on in whispers. She hurried to the bed and found Johnsy looking out through the window and counting backwards: "Twelve... then... eleven, then... ten... then nine... eight... seven..." almost together.
Sue looked out of the window to see what her friend could be counting, but she saw nothing except the back yard, a brick wall, and a large, worn-out vine that had climbed it; the cold winds had touched it and the greater part of
its leaves had fallen, so that its branches showed bare, clinging to the old, crumbling wall. She asked her friend:
"What is the matter, Johnsy dear?"
She answered in a voice like a whisper: "Six... they are falling fast. Three days ago there were hundreds, and I grew dizzy trying to count them; but now the matter has become easy. There — another one is going. Only five are left..."
— "Five what? Won't you tell your friend?"
— "Leaves. The leaves of the vine facing the window. When the last leaf goes, I shall go with it. I have known this for three days... didn't the doctor tell you?"
Sue answered with vexation and mockery: "I never heard such absurd nonsense. What have the vine's leaves to do with your recovery? The doctor told me that the measure of hope for recovery was ten to one, and that is a natural measure for ordinary human beings when they ride the streetcars or walk past a newly built building. Try to take some warm broth now, and let me finish the drawings so I can sell them and buy you warm wine, and some nourishing cuts of meat for your greedy friend."
Johnsy said, her gaze still fixed on the window: "You won't need to buy wine anymore. No — I don't want any broth. There goes one, far away. I want to see the last leaf fall before the darkness spreads. Then my turn will come to go."
Sue's tone was agitated as she said: "Listen, dear. Promise me to close your eyes and stop looking out of the window until I finish my work. I must deliver these drawings tomorrow and I need the light; otherwise I would have drawn the curtains over the window."
Johnsy said with displeasure: "Can't you draw in the other room?"