There goes the fifth one. Now only four more leaves to go. No...I don't want any broth. I want to see the last leaf fall.... Then I'll go too."
"Johnsy, dear," Sue spoke softly, close to her ear, "Just keep your eyes closed, and don't look out of the window. I must hand in this drawing by tomorrow. I need the light to draw. Otherwise I would have drawn the shade down."
"Why don't you draw in the other room?"
"I want to be with you," Sue said softly. "Try to get some sleep. I have to call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner in my drawing. I'll come back in a minute."
Old Behrman lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was a painter. He was past sixty and had a long beard that was the main feature of his impish body. Behrman had had consistent failures as an artist. He talked about a masterpiece that he was going to paint soon, but had never got around to actually doing it.
Sue found Behrman, smelling of gin, in his dimly lighted den below. In one dark corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been awaiting the brushstrokes of the masterpiece that Behrman was dreaming about, for twenty-five years. She told him about Johnsy's fancy about vine and its falling leaves, and how she felt terrified that Johnsy would die when the last leaf fell from the vine.
