Den sorte drøm

Summary

A moonlit big-top, gas-lamps flickering like nervous fireflies, frames Stella, the famed equestrian acrobat whose spine curves over her galloping mount with the fatal elegance of a question mark. Two predators in tailcoats circle: Hirsch, a jeweler whose vaulting ambition glitters harder than his gems, and Count von Waldberg, whose title is as thin as the lacquer on his honor. Stella spurns the merchant’s diamond trinkets yet lets the aristocrat trail her home, surrendering in a shadowed boudoir where mirrors drink every sigh. Days later, at a soirée scented with absinthe and envy, Hirsch barges in uninvited, offering a brooch as bait; Stella’s rebuke draws Waldberg’s fist, and the quarrel metastasizes into a midnight duel of cards beneath chandeliers of ice-blue flame. Luck hemorrhages—Waldberg bleeds fortune, signs an IOU for 85,000 crowns payable at dawn. Stella, astride her white stallion of conscience, gallops to Hirsch’s lair to pilfer a necklace that might ransom her lover’s pride; a mirror, treacherous as a gossip, catches the theft. Blackmail follows: midnight tryst or exposure. Waldberg, gnawed by jealousy, arrives first, pistol trembling like a tuning fork, and in the hush between heartbeats fires. Stella crumples, whispering with her last breath that the stolen jewels were her dowry of redemption.

Synopsis

Two men of high rank are both wooing the beautiful and famous equestrian acrobat Stella. While Stella ignores the jeweler Hirsch, she accepts Count von Waldberg's offer to follow her home, where she falls in his arms. At her party some days later Hirsch turns up uninvited. He says he wants to give Stella a piece of jewelry, but she repulses his advances. When Waldberg sees this he knocks Hirsch down. Hirsch challenges him to a duel by cards. Waldberg loses all his money, and in the end also has to sign a promissory note on 85.000, which should be paid within 24 hours. To help Waldberg solve his debt Stella goes to Hirsch to receive the brooch he has promised her. While he turns away, she steals a precious necklace from him, but he happens to see the theft in a mirror. He tails her to a park, where he sees Stella giving the necklace to Waldberg. Hirsch tells Stella to come to him at midnight, if she wants him to be silent about the theft. When Waldberg finds out that Stella is going to Hirsch in the night, he becomes jealous and goes there as well. By mistake he happens to shoot Stella, who reveals her sacrifice for him before she dies.