Balletdanserinden

Summary

Asta Nielsen’s Camilla, a sylph in toe-shoes, pirouettes straight into the footlights of Jean Mayol’s new play when the star collapses; her impromptu debut detonates applause that ricochets through the theatre’s gilt arteries and into the playwright’s heart. Overnight the ingénue becomes both muse and lover, her silhouette traced by the gaslight of Montmartre, until Paul Rich—Jean’s painter friend—asks to trap her likeness in oils, smearing cobalt and carmine across canvas while jealousy ferments in the wings. A perfumed billet-doux from Yvette Simon, the lubricious wife of a rentier, slips through Jean’s keyhole and lands like a guillotine in Camilla’s palm; betrayal burns white-hot, so the ballerina, drunk on revenge, spills the clandestine affair over champagne flutes at Simon’s chandeliered soirée, each syllable a shard of crystal. But the plot pirouettes again: a second letter arrives, Camilla delivers it to the cuckolded husband, and the pistol he cocks is a terse full-stop to the sentence of love. Yvette, cloaked in Camilla’s practice tutu, takes the bullet meant for someone else; blood blooms on tulle like a macabre poppy. Cradled by Paul’s quiet devotion among hospital sheets stiffer than ballet tarlatan, Camilla awakens to find Jean’s contrition hovering—yet she turns away, choosing the painter’s steadfast pigment over the author’s mercurial ink.

Synopsis

The ballet pupil Camilla Favier tells the author Jean Mayol that she had learned all lines of the main character in his new play. When the stage manager announces that the leading lady is sick, Jean suggests that Camilla could replace her this evening. Camilla makes a huge success, and she and Jean fall in love. Jean introduces her to his friend, the painter Paul Rich, who wants to make a painting of her. While she is in his atelier, Jean gets a love letter from Yvette Simon, the wife of a rich rentier, asking for a rendezvous in the wood. In Jean's empty apartment Camilla finds the letter and is devastated. In revenge she reveals the secret love story for Mr. Simon and his guests at a big party. Later she finds a new love message from Yvette Simon. She brings it to Mr. Simon, who gets furious, grabs a pistol and goes to Jean's apartment. Camilla repents and rushes away to warn Jean and Yvette. To deceive her husband Yvette dresses herself in Camilla's clothes, but he recognizes her nonetheless and kills her. Camilla is shocked and brought to a hospital by Paul, who takes care of her afterwards. When Jean turns up and approaches her, she rejects him and stays with Paul.