Summary
A gaunt American chiseller of plaster dreams, Maurie Monnier haunts Montparnasse’s dusk-lit ateliers, wedding Clarice—part mannequin, part mercenary eclipse—whose gaze converts affection into francs. When paternal death rattles a trans-Atlantic fortune, Maurie crawls back to Manhattan’s marble mansions, only to be excommunicated by a mother who smells poverty like sour milk and a brother who bars the gilded door with silk-gloved finality. Penniless, he teeters on an East-River parapet, wrists twitching toward the abyss, until Hope—luminous, almost pre-Raphaelite—materialises like a stray sunbeam and trades despair for clay-smeared ardour. Their idyll curdles the instant Clarice resurfaces, trailing cigarette smoke and litigation, ready to auction their shared past for alimony and spectacle.
Synopsis
Maurie Monnier, a poor young American sculptor in Paris, marries Clarice, a gold-digging model who later abandons him. When Maurie's wealthy father dies, Maurie returns to the U.S., but his mother and brother will have nothing to do with him because of his poverty. At the end of his rope, he's about to kill himself when he meets Hope, a beautiful young girl who inspires him. Just when things are looking up for Maurie and his new love Hope, who should show up but his gold-digging wife Clarice.
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