Balleteusens hævn

A Copenhagen music-hall pirouettes into pandemonium when ageing star Adele—whose arthritic ankles have exiled her from the boards—watches her ethereal rival, the sylphlike Stella, ascend in the same role that once bore Adele’s name in gilt. In the hush between curtain-calls, Adele filches a vial of belladonna from the prop chest, distills it into the prima ballerina’s talcum, and orchestrates a sabotage so exquisite it could be choreographed: during the climactic thirty-two fouettés, Stella’s retinas ignite like paper lanterns, her Achilles snaps with the sound of a snapped cello string, and the footlights frame her collapse as a tragic tableau. Guilt metastasizes; Adele, haunted by the echo of castanets and the copper scent of blood, attempts restitution—first by bankrolling Stella’s futile surgeries, then by confessing to the impresario who once adored her. But the theatre is a carnivorous chapel: gossip whispers through velvet corridors, creditors circle like gulls over a trawler, and the ghost-light on the empty stage becomes Adele’s sole interlocutor. In the final reel she dons her frayed pointe shoes, dances until her metatarsals splinter, and expires centre-stage, her corpse lit by a single lime as the audience—now a jury of silhouettes—offers neither applause nor mercy.