Summary
Revelation" unfolds as a poignant, operatic tragedy charting the precipitous descent and meteoric ascent of Magda, a spirited German ingénue. Driven by a fervent aspiration for the Parisian stage, she abandons her paternal hearth, inadvertently precipitating a paralytic stroke in her rigid, aristocratic father, Colonel Schwartz, whose subsequent recovery is marred by an unyielding edict of her non-existence. The glittering promise of the French capital, however, transmutes into a crucible of destitution. Her operatic dreams curdle into the grim reality of street beggary, her honor a fragile shield against the encroaching shadows of despair.
A chance encounter in a Bohemian café, where hunger forces her to sing for sustenance, reunites her with Karl Von Kellar, a legal scholar and ghost from her idyllic childhood. He salvages her from the abyss, offering not salvation but a precarious refuge as his mistress. This fleeting idyll shatters when Von Kellar, summoned back to Germany by familial tragedy, discards Magda. Alone, pregnant, and fiercely proud, she conceals the birth of their son, only to be cast once more into the pitiless streets. The desperate exigencies of maternal love compel a wrenching sacrifice: she barters her virtue for her child's survival and a renewed shot at artistic renown, becoming the protégé and paramour of the ambitious operatic impresario, Antony D'Arcy.
Years later, transformed into the celebrated diva Maddalina Dall Orto, Magda returns to her ancestral city, bathed in the incandescent glow of fame. At a gubernatorial gala, her past and present collide. Von Kellar, now a formidable statesman, recognizes her, while her father, softened by time and swayed by societal pressure, grudgingly extends an olive branch. Magda, adorned in a lavish tapestry of success, reoccupies her childhood home, yet her opulence only intensifies her father's gnawing suspicion. The revelation of her child to Von Kellar during a tense confrontation, and her subsequent denunciation of him, precipitates a violent domestic unraveling. Colonel Schwartz, his patriarchal authority challenged, brutally extracts a confession, then attempts to salvage his family's 'honor' by coercing Von Kellar into marriage, leveraging both threat and social expediency. Von Kellar, calculating the political cachet of a celebrated wife, agrees, but on the cruel condition of the child's perpetual secrecy. Magda's indignant refusal ignites her father's final, fatal fury. In a horrifying tableau of paternal tyranny, he brandishes a revolver, threatening a double suicide unless she capitulates. Her unwavering loyalty to her son, however, remains paramount. As the pistol rises, Colonel Schwartz succumbs to another, terminal stroke, leaving Magda to cradle his lifeless form, her life's tumultuous journey culminating in an agonizing tableau of grief and unresolved tragedy.
Synopsis
Magda, the daughter of Colonel Schwartz, a retired army officer, runs away from her home in Germany, and goes to Paris, hoping to gain fame as an opera singer. Her leave taking breaks her father's heart and brings on a stroke of paralysis, which almost results in his death. After months of careful nursing, he partially recovers, and thereafter, forbids even the mention of Magda's name in his presence. In Paris the years pass, and Magda failing to realize her ambitions, is reduced to abject poverty, and finally, rather than sell her honor, becomes a common beggar of the streets. Then, one day, penniless and starving, she enters a Bohemian café, in the Latin Quartier and sings for the price of a meal. Here she is seen and recognized by an old friend of her childhood days, Karl Von Kellar, who has come to Paris to study law. Learning the pathetic story of Magda's struggles and failure, he takes her to his apartment, and in the course of events she becomes his mistress. After months of happiness, Von Kellar begins to tire of Magda, and then, one day, he is called back to Germany by the death of his father. A few months later, Magda's child is born, but pride prevents her from communicating the fact to Von Kellar, who has apparently forgotten her. Again reduced to poverty, and cast out upon the streets by a heartless landlord, she wanders up and down the highways, singing, her baby clutched to her breast. Later, to save her child from starvation, and with the promise of attaining the goal of her life's ambition, a musical career, she becomes the mistress of Antony D'Arcy, a rising young operatic manager. Years pass, and Magda, now a famous opera singer, known as Maddalina Dall Orto, arrives at the principal hotel in her home city, to attend a big musical festival. At the governor's ball that night, which she attends, as the guest of honor, she is instantly recognized by Von Kellar, who is now a dignified and eminently respectable counselor of state. Meanwhile Colonel Schwartz, learning that the distinguished guest of the governor's is Magda his daughter, is prevailed upon to forgive her, and take her back. With her numerous servants and pets, Magda takes up her quarters in the old home, and bedazzles her bumble family with the wealth of her jewels and the magnificence of her wardrobe. At a loss to understand how she has attained so much good fortune and fame, her father becomes suspicious, and questions her persistently regarding her past life in Paris. Then Von Kellar pays a call, and learns for the first time of his child, now a youngster of seven, attending a private academy in Paris. Magda denounces Von Kellar. When Von Kellar has departed, Magda's father, who has overheard enough to confirm his suspicions confronts Magda and brutally forces a confession from her. In a towering rage, he writes Von Kellar a note, threatening to kill him, unless he consents to an immediate marriage with Magda. Fearing public exposure, and realizing that Magda's position in the world of art, will lend a certain dignity to his political prestige. Von Kellar calls on Colonel Schwartz and heartily agrees to an immediate marriage with his daughter. Alone with Magda, however, Von Kellar refuses to make her his wife, unless she agrees to keep all knowledge of their child a secret from the world. In a burst of outraged pride, she is furiously denouncing him, when her father enters, and learning what has passed between them, promises Von Kellar that he will force Magda to marry him as she is no longer in a position to choose the conditions under which she will become the honorable wife of her child's father. After Kellar has left, Colonel Schwartz locks all the doors, and arming himself with a revolver, threatens to kill both Magda and himself unless she consents to marry Von Kellar at once. She refuses to abandon her child, and as her father slowly raises the pistol to her heart, he is seized with a stroke of paralysis and falls back dead. Flinging herself upon her knees by her father's dead body, Magda sobs out her misery and grief, as the story concludes.
