CHARACTERS        

The characters are Sue, Johnsy and Behrmann. All three is artist and they live in the same old brick house. Sue is from the State of Maine and draw pictures for magazines. Johnsy is from California and she wants to paint a picture of the Bay of Naples. The two girls live together. 
Behrmann is an older man and live downstairs the two girls. 

From the beginning, the author shows that Johnsy not only physically sick: "He was a bad sickness. Doctors called him pneumonia" but also she has no expectations of living. "I´ll do all I know how to do. But when a sick person begins to feel that he´s going to die, half my work is useless." Johnsy is really sure that she will die when the last leaf of the old tree falls, "when the last one falls, I must go, too."
But her friend Sue was strong enough to help her friend. The author doesn`t give us any descriptive expressions to understand her personality but we can realize it though her actions. She didn`t give up her friend for a minute, she was eager to help her mentally not even physically.
       The strangest character in the story with unsuccessful and miserable life is Old Buhrman. For forty years he has not touched the ham of art fairy. And after twenty years, he even cannot lay first line of drawing for his masterpiece, which he has been dreaming. His work is model. However, his portrait is staring at the end of life, he finishes his masterpiece; Johnsy’s life. He pours his rest life into Johnsy. That “lovely” voluntary act is mutely taken place in a dark night but it makes old artist “immortal”.