“The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
“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 case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is—some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day 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 Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woolen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
“I have something to tell you, white mouse,” she said. “Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him 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 dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, 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 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.”
The Last Leaf: A short story by O’Henry
http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/h/last_leaf.html
In this beautiful short story , my personal favorite in the undergraduate days, the moment comes in the last paragraph in which Sue tells a recovered Johnsy that Behrman has saved her life by painting the Last Leaf and in doing so staked his own life . The whole denouement comes in this one single paragraph .As Sue tells Johnsy , she tells us too what has happened to Behrman. Behrman’s dream of painting his masterpiece some day has been achieved and now that Johnsy has survived her illness she will some day be able to paint the Bay of Naples, her own masterpiece. Behrman’s masterpiece will live for ever, wind or rain. He has turned over a new leaf, so to speak.
