Summary
In the shadow of the Great War, Gulian Eyre represents the shattered American masculinity of the 1920s. Blinded on the battlefields of France, his world is reduced to the tactile care and soothing voice of Vida, his nurse. Their marriage is born in the dark—a union of necessity and profound emotional reliance. When a pioneering French surgeon restores Gulian’s sight, the light brings a cruel irony. Vida, fearing that his love is merely a debt of gratitude and convinced that her own perceived physical inadequacies would repel a sighted man, orchestrates a vanishing act. She secures a divorce under the guise of abandonment, leaving Gulian to return to the gilded, superficial circles of his American socialite family. He drifts into an engagement with Lael, a remnant of his pre-war life, while Vida lingers in the periphery as a companion to his mother. The drama pivots on a classic melodramatic conceit: Gulian does not recognize the woman he once loved because he has never looked upon her face. As the Eyre family fortune collapses under the weight of scandal and tragedy, the masks of high society fall away, forcing a confrontation between the man Gulian has become and the woman who saved him in the trenches.
Synopsis
Gulian Eyre, an American soldier blinded in action during the World War, remains in France after the cessation of hostilities and marries his nurse, Vida. Gulian is later operated on by a skilled French surgeon and recovers his sight, only to find that Vida has left him and obtained a divorce. Gulian returns to his family in the United States and becomes engaged to Lael, a girl he had known before the war. During this time, Vida has also come to the United States and has become the companion of Gulian's mother. Gulian does not recognize Vida, whom he has never seen; in any event, she had told him that she was terribly disfigured in order to make him believe that she did not pity him. Gulian's wedding to Lael is halted when his brother-in-law kills himself after squandering the Eyre fortune. Lael soon breaks her engagement to the impoverished Gulian, who declares his love to Vida. Vida involuntarily reveals her identity, and Gulian's happiness is complete.
