The last leaf - O. Henry/2

  "Oh, I've never heard such nonsense," complained Sue. "What have old ivy leaves to do with you getting well? Don't be silly. The doctor told me this morning that your chances of getting better were - let me think exactly what he said- he said the chances were ten to one!" Now try to drink some soup, and let me to back to the drawing, so the editor will pay me. Then I will buy some wine for my sick friend, and some pork chops for my greedy self."

  "You don't need to get any more wine," said Joanna, loking out the window. "There goes another one. No I don't want any soup. 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, bendng over her, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand these drawing in by tomorrow."

  "Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Joanna, coldly.

  "I'd rather be here beside you," said Sue. "Besides, I don't want you looking at those silly ivy leaves."

  "Tell me as soon as you are finished." said Joanna, closing her eyes, and lying as white and still as a fallen statue, "Because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to lose my hold on everything, and go sailong down, down, just like one of  those poor, tired leaves."

  "Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my mpdel for the story about the old miner. I'll only be gone a minute. Don't move 'til I come back."

  Old Behrman was a painter who live on the ground floor beneath them. He wast past sixty and had a beard like Moses. Behrman was a failure at art. For forty years he had painted without success. He was always about to paint a master piese, but had never begun it. For the last few years he had done only a little painting for advertisements. He earned a little money by serving as a model for the young artists in the colony who could not afford to pay the price of a professional. He drank a lot of gin, and sill talked about his coming masterpiece. He thought of himself as the portector of Sue and Joanna. But everyone else thought he was fierce and tough old man.

  Sue found Behrman smelloing strongly of gin in his badly lighted roon down below. In one corner was b blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting fort twenty- five  years for the first line of his masterpiece. She told him, Joanna's belief about the leaves, and how she feared that Joanna, who was so weak and fragile, would actually float way like a leaf herself.  Old Behrman's red eyes are filled woth tears as he shouted with anger at suc  idiotic imaginings.  

  "What!" he cried. "Is there someone in the world foolish enough to die because leaves drop of a vine? I have never heard such a thing. No, I will not pose as a model for your stupid old miner. Why did you allow this follishness to come into her brain? Oh, poor little Miss Joanna."

  "She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the vever has filled her mind with strange ideas. Mr. Behrman, if you don't want to pose for me, you don't have to. But I think you are a horrible old - old thing."

  "You are a typical wonan!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I would not pose? Come on. I have been ready to pose for half an hour. God! What a terrible place for someone as good as Miss Joanna to be sick. When I paint my masteripice we will go away together, God!"