The Last Lea:

and Other Stories

O. Henry

Retold by Pat McGowan

O. Henry es el pseudonimo del escritor norteamericano

William Sydney Porter (1862-1910).
Escribid principalmente relatos cortos. En ellos nos muestra
que la vida tiene muchos matices sorprendentes y que casi nunca
nada es lo que parece ser. La simple hoja de un arbol puede ser
la gran obra maestra de un pintor acabado. Un padre rico puede
convertirse en el cupido perfecto.
Para O. Henry la vida esta hecha de sonrisas y lagrimas, y
aunque a veces estas ganan, sacrificar nuestro tesoro mas
preciado por amor puede llevamos a experimentar una sorpresa
magica, y es que todos necesitamos que haya magia en nuestra
existencia.

"I-

There is an area of New York called Greenwich Village.

Unlike the rest of the city, which has its straight streets running
at right angles to each other, Greenwich Village is full of little
winding streets and squares. The buildings and apartments in
the Village are mostly very old and picturesque, often Dutch in
style, and the rents are low. Many artists and people interested
in art came to live in the Village, attracted by the cheap prices
and the Bohemian way of life that they found there.
At the top of an old three-storey brick house Sue and Johnsy
had their studio. "Johnsy" was what her friends called Joanna.
One was from the state of Maine, the other from California, and
they were both painters who had come to New York to become
famous: They met in a restaurant on Eighth Street and found that
their tastes in food were so similar that they decided to set up a
studio together.
That was in May. In November, a cold invisible stranger
(whom the doctors called pneumonia) arrived in the city,
touching people here and there with his icy fingers. On the east
side of the city he made rapid progress, Finding many victims,
but in the narrow, winding streets of the Village his progress was
slower. But he touched Johnsy. She lay, hardly moving on her
painted iron bed, looking through the small Dutch window at the
blank side of the next brick house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hall. He
looked very serious.
"She has one chance in, let us say, ten to live," he said. "And
that chance depends on her will to live. But your little friend has
made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she
anything on her mind?"
"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day,"
said Sue.
- T -

THE LAST LEAF

"Paint? Nonsense! Has she anything more important on her

mind - a man, for example?"
"A man?" said Sue. "No, doctor; there is nothing like that on
her mind."
"Well, it must be her weak condition then," said the doctor.
"I will do everything that medical science can do for her, but
when one of my patients starts believing that she is going to die,
I subtract 50 per cent from the power of medicine to cure her. If
you can get her to ask one question about the latest fashions, I
will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in
ten."
After the doctor had gone, Sue went into the studio and
cried. Then, hiding her sadness, she went into Johnsy's room,
carrying her drawing board and singing.
Johnsy lay in bed, very still, her face turned towards the
window. Sue slopped singing, thinking Johnsy was asleep. She
arranged her board and began drawing an illustration for a
magazine story; young artists have to find some way of earning
-

a living while they are trying to become famous. But while she
was working, she heard a low sound, repeated several times. She
went quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy's eyes were wide open. She was looking out of the
window and counting - counting backwards.
"Twelve," she said, and a little later, "eleven . . . ten . .
nine," . . . then "eight" and "seven" almost together.
Sue looked out of the window; what was Johnsy counting?
There was only the empty yard and the blank side of the brick
house next door. An old, old vine with dead roots climbed
halfway up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had
blown nearly all the leaves from the vine so that its branches
were almost bare.
"Six," said Johnsy, almost whispering. "They're falling
faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made
my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes

THE LAST LEAF

another one. There are only five left now."

"Five what, clear? Tell your Sue."
"Leaves. On the vine. When the last one falls, I must go too.
I've known that for three clays. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Oh what nonsense!" exclaimed Sue. "How can there be a
connection between old vine leaves and your getting well? And
you used to love that vine so much, you naughty girl. Now, don't
be silly. You know, the doctor told me this morning that your
chances for getting well very soon were - now what exactly did
he say? he said the chances were ten to one! Now, please try
to drink some soup and let me get back to my drawing, so that I
can make some money to buy some port wine for my patient
and some pork chops for myself."
"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, without
taking her eyes from the window. "There goes another leaf. 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."

R -

THE LAST LEAF

"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you

promise me to keep your eyes closed and not look out of the
window until I have finished working? I must have these
drawings ready by tomorrow. I need the light, or I would close
the blind."
"Can't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.
"I'd prefer to be here with you," said Sue. "Besides, I don't
want you to keep looking at those silly vine leaves."
"Tell me as soon as you have finished " said Johnsy, closing
her eyes and lying white and very, very still, "because I want to
see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I
want to let go of everything and fall down, down, down, just like
one of those poor, tired leaves."
"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must ask Behrman to come up
and be my model for the man I'm drawing. I'll only be away for
a minute. Don't try to move until I come back."
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor
below Sue and Johnsy. He was more than sixty years old and

THE LAST LEAF

was full of failure in art. For forty years he had spoken of

painting a masterpiece, but he hadn't yet begun it. For several
years he had painted nothing, except now and then some
commercial or advertising work. He earned a little money as a
model for the young artists in the Village who did not have
enough money to pay a professional model. He,drank a lot of gin
and still talked of the masterpiece he intended to paint. He was
a fierce, little old man who made fun of any softness in anyone,
but considered himself the protector of the two young women in
the studio above him.
She found Behrman smelling strongly of drink in his badlylit room. In one corner was an easel with a blank canvas which
had been waiting for twenty-five years to receive the first line of
the masterpiece. Sue told him of Johnsy's strange idea, and how
she feared that her friend would indeed die, being as light and
fragile as a leaf herself.
Old Behrman, with obvious tears in his eyes, shouted his
anger at such an idiotic idea.
"What!" he cried. "Are there people in this world who are
foolish enough to die because leaves fall from a vine? I have
never heard of such a diing! No, I will not pose as a model for
you! Why do you allow such silly ideas to get into her head? Oh,
that poor little Miss Johnsy."
"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left
her mind full of strange ideas. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you
do not wish to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a
horrible old man!"
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I
will not pose? For half an hour I have been trying to say that I
am ready to pose. This is not the place where someone as good
as Miss Johnsy should lie ill. Some day I will paint a
masterpiece and we will all go away."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the
blind down and motioned to Behrman to go into the other room.

THE LAST LEAF

Once in the room, they both looked fearfully out of the window
at the vine then at each other. A steady, cold rain mixed with
snow was falling. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, sat to pose for
Sue.
When Sue awoke the next morning after only an hour's
sleep, she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the
closed green blind.
"Pull it up! I want to see," see ordered in a whisper.
Sue obeyed.
But what a surprise! Even after heavy rain and strong winds
that had continued all night, one vine leaf was still hanging
against the brick wall. It was the last leaf on the vine. Still dark
green in the middle, but yellow round its edges, it hung bravely
from a branch about six metres above the ground.
"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I was sure it would fall
during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall today, and I will
die at the same time."
"Oh my dear, my dear," said Sue, putting her tired face next
to Johnsy's on the pillow, "dunk of me, if you won't think of

THE LAST LEAF

THE LAST LEAF

yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy didn't answer.
The long day passed slowly, and even in the darkness of
evening they could see the one vine leaf hanging from the
branch against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night,
the north wind began to blow again and the rain began to beat
against the windows.
In the morning, when it was light enough, Johnsy told Sue
to raise the blind.
The vine leaf was still there.
Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called
to Sue, who was preparing some chicken soup for her.
"I've been a bad girl, Sue," said Johnsy. "Something has
made that last leaf stay there to show me how bad I was. It is
wrong to want to die. You may bring me a little soup now, and
some milk with a little port wine in it, and - no; bring me a
minor first. Then put some pillows round me, and I will sit up
and watch you cook."
An hour later she said, "Sue, one day I hope to paint the Bay
of Naples."
The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to
go into the hall with him as he left.
"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Johnsy's thin,
shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I
must see another patient who lives downstairs. Behrman, his
name is - some kind of artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is
an old, weak man, and he has a very bad attack. There is no hope
for him, but he'll go to hospital today to be made more
comfortable."
The next day the doctor said to Sue, "She's out of danger.
You've won. Good food and care now - that's all."
That afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay,
happily knitting a very blue and very useless scarf, and put an
arm round her.

"1 have something to tell you," she said. "Mr. Behrman died
of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was only ill for two days.
They found him two days ago in his room, helpless with pain.
His shoes and clothes were wet and icy cold. They couldn't
think where he had gone on such a terrible night. And then they
found a lantern, still lit, and a ladder, and some brushes and a
palette with green and yellow colours mixed together, and look out of the window, dear, at the last vine leaf on the wall.
Didn't you ask yourself why it never moved when the wind
blew? All, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it
there the night the last leaf fell."
GLOSSARY

THE LAST LEAF

Castellano
English
badly-lit
mal iluminada
bare
desnudas
bending over
inclinandose
blank
sin adornos
blank canvas
lienzo en bianco
blind
persiana
breath
soplo
chance
oportunidad
caballete
easel
even chances
igualdad de
oportunidades
yacfa
lay
made up her mind ha decidido
masterpiece
obra maestra
port wine
vino de Oporto
pose
posar
pull it up!
jsiibela!
contfnua
steady
vine
parra
winding
sinuosas

0 >-

Catala
mal il-luminada
nues
inclinant-se
ilis
lien? en blanc
persiana
buf
oportunitat
cavallet
igualtat d'oportunitats
jeia
ha decidit
obra mestra
vi d'Oport
posar
puja-la!
contmua
parra
sinuoscs

The Gift of the Magi

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty
cents of it was in pennies - pennies which had been saved by
bargaining with the butcher, the baker and the vegetable man.
Three times Delia counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents.
And the next day would be Christinas.
There was clearly nothing to do but to sit down on the
shabby old sofa and cry. So Delia did it. Which makes one
reflect that life is made up of tears and smiles, with tears
winning.
While the mistress of the house is sitting there, take a look
at her home - a small flat that costs $8 a week, colourless and
half-filled with shabby furniture.
In the hall below was a letter-box (into which no letter
would go) and an electric bell which refused to make any sound
at all when it was rung. Beside it was a card with the name "Mr.
James Dillingham Young" written on it.
The "Dillingham" belonged to a former period of prosperity
when its owner was being paid $30 a week. Now, when the
income was reduced to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked
blurred and out of place. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham
Young came home and reached his flat above, lie was called
"Jim" and warmly embraced by Mrs. James Dillingham Young,
already introduced to you as Delia.
Delia finished her cry and washed her face. She stood by the
window and looked miserably at a grey cat on a grey fence in a
grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she
only had $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been
saving every penny she could for months with this result.
Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Living expenses had been
greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to

-J J-

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. She had spent many a happy
hour planning for something nice for him. Something rare and
fine and perfect - something almost worthy cf the honour of
being owned by Jim.
There was a long, narrow mirror between the windows of
the room. A very thin and very agile person, by observing his
reflection in a series of rapid, vertical strips, may get a fairly
accurate idea of his looks in this mirror. Delia, being slim, had
mastered the art.
Suddenly she turned from the window and stood in front of
the mirror. Her eyes were shining brightly, but in those twenty
seconds her face had lost its colour. Rapidly, she pulled clown
her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham
Youngs of which they both were extremely proud. One was
Jim's gold pocket watch, which had been his father's and his
grandfather's. The other was Delia's hair. If the Queen of Sheba
had lived in the flat opposite, Delia would have let her hair hang
out of the window some day just to outshine the Queen's jewels.
If King Solomon had been the caretaker, with all his treasures in
the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time
he passed, just to see the king pull his beard in envy.
Delia's beautiful hair fell about her face in shining waves,
like a cascade of brown water. It reached below her knee and
was almost like a dress for her. She put it up again nervously and
quickly, hesitated for a minute and stood still. A tear fell onto the
worn red carpet.
She put on her old brown jacket. She put on her old brown
hat. Willi the bright sparkle still in her eyes, she went out of the
door and down to the street. She stopped where a sign read:
"Mine. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." Delia ran up to the
first floor and collected herself, breathing hard.
"Will you buy my hair?" she asked.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take off your hat and let me see

-JZ---

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

TIIE GIFT OF THE MAGI

what yours looks like."

Down fell the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the hair with an
experienced hand.
"Alright. Give it to me quick," said Delia, closing her eyes
at the sight of the shining scissors as they moved over her head.

seven cents. With that chain on his watch, Jim could look at the
time confidently in any company. Although the watch was
beautiful, he sometimes looked at it in secret because of the old
leather strap that he used instead of a chain.

The next two hours passed happily. She searched the shops
for Jim's present. She found it at last. It surely had been made
for Jim and no one else. There was no other one like it in any of
the shops. She had searched them all thoroughly. It was a
simple, plain platinum watch chain, worth its value because of
what it was made of, not because of any special design - as all
good things should be. It was worthy of The Watch. As soon as
she saw it, she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him.
Simplicity and value - the description fitted them both. It cost
her twenty-one dollars, and she hurried home with the eighty-

When Delia reached home, her delight gave way to a little

prudence and good sense. She got out her curling irons, lit the
gas and set to work to repair the damage caused by generosity
added to love. This is always a huge task, dear friends - a huge
task.
Forty minutes later her head was covered in tiny, close-lying
curls which made her look wonderfully like a naughty
schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror - long,
carefully and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes
a second look at me, he'll say I look like a chorus girl. But what
could I do oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven
cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on
the cooker, ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Delia doubled the watch chain in her
hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door he always

Ak-

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

entered. Then she heard his step on the stair down on the first
floor. She turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of
saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things,
and now she whispered, "Please God, make him think I'm still
pretty."
The door opened. Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked
thin and very serious. Poor man, he was only twenty-two - and
to have the responsibility of a family! He needed a new overcoat
and he had no gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, motionless, his eyes fixed on
Delia. There was an expression in them that she could not read.
It terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval,
nor horror, nor any of the emotions that she had been prepared
for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that strange expression
on his face.
Delia got off the table and went to him. "Jim, darling," she
cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and I sold
it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without
giving you a present. It'll grow again - you won't mind, will
you? I just had to do it. My hair grows terribly fast. Say 'Merry
Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice
- what a beautiful nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim slowly, as if he had
not understood that fact even after thinking as hard as he could.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Delia. "Don't you like me just
as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, am I not?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone," he said with a look which was
almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Delia. "It's sold, 1 tell you sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, Jim. Be good to me. It
went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she

15.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could

ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Jim seemed to wake quickly from his trance. He embraced
his Delia. He took a package from his overcoat pocket and threw
it on the table.
"Don't make any mistake about me, Dell," he said. "I don't
think there's any haircut or shampoo that could make me love
my wife any less. But if you open that package you may see why
you gave me a bit of a shock at first."
White fingers tore open the string and the paper. And then an
ecstatic scream of joy; then, alas! a quick feminine change to
hysterical tears, which needed all Jim's powers to comfort.
For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back,
that Delia had admired for so long in a Broadway window.
Beautiful combs, made of pure tortoise shell, and decorated with
jewels - the perfect colour to wear in the beautiful vanished hair.
They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply
wanted them without ever hoping to own them. And now they
were hers, but the hair that should have worn the desired combs
had gone.
She held them to her, and at last she
was able to look up with wet eyes
^ra^^^Sf^^^x.
and a smile and say, "My hair
grows so fast, Jim!"
Ji^lp^^^^^^gpm
Delia jumped up like a p S S l l f e ^ ^ f f l P I
startled little cat and cried, "Oh,
Jim had not yet seen his
beautiful present. She held it out to him
eagerly in her open hand. The dull, precious metal seemed to
shine with a reflection of her bright spirit.
"Isn't it a beauty, Jim? 1 hunted all over town to find it.
You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give
me your watch. 1 want to see how the chain looks on it."

J6

1
1

1
i

T I M GIFT OF THE MAGI

Instead of obeying, Jim fell down on the couch, put his

hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," he said, "let's put our Christmas presents away and
keep them for a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I
sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now,
why don't you put the chops on to cook."
The magi, as you know, were the three wise men wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Baby Jesus in
the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones. And here I have
told you the story of two children in a flat who most unwisely
sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures they had. But it
should be said that of everyone who gives gifts, people like
these are the wisest. They are the magi.

GLOSSARY

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

English
Castellano
Catala
blurred
borroso
desdibuixat
collected herself se repcupero
recuperar-se
combs
peinetas
pintes
curling irons
tenacilias
arrissadors
ecstatic
extatico
extatic
idiocy
idiotez
estupidesa
manger
pesebre
pessebre
mistress
el ama de la casa la mestressa
outshine
eclipsar
eclipsar
shabby
rai'do
pobre
sparkle
destello
llampec
worn
gastado
gastat