The Crimson Wing
Summary
On the volatile frontier where cicadas drown out cannon-fire, Count Ludwig von Leun-Walram—Prussian epaulettes glinting like frost on a sabre—first glimpses Marguerite Clairon, tragedienne of the Comédie-Française, as she rehearses Phèdre beside a sulfurous spring. His polite declination of her love becomes an aria of courteous cruelty, its echo more lethal than grapeshot. Months later, childhood memory crystallises into obsession when he recognises Marcelle de Lembach, daughter of the French general who once tutored him in cartography; their flirtation is mapped in secret glances across a ballroom whose chandeliers tremble to rumours of mobilisation. War detonates this idyll: Ludwig is recalled to the 42nd Hussars, Marcelle dons a lieutenant’s stripes and commands a reckless sortie; fog, powder and coincidence deliver her, disarmed but defiant, into the count’s picket line. With a chivalry that will damn them both, he escorts her under flag of truce back to her compatriots, thereby sealing his own court-martial in absentia. Marguerite, now scarlet-crossed nurse, discovers the wounded Ludwig in a field hospice lit by kerosene and moon-shame; she spirits him through no-man’s-land, a clandestine Calvary. Enter Paul D’Arblay, venomous spymaster and rejected lover, who brandishes proof of Ludwig’s unauthorised parley and demands Marguerite’s body as hush-money. She yields, but only after lacing her veins with cyanide distilled from peach kernels—an exit in scarlet satin on her aunt’s chaise longue. Armistice snow blankets the cratered border; Ludwig, medals swapped for mourning crêpe, finds Marcelle laying winter roses on nameless graves. They speak not of guilt or pardon but of tomorrow’s train to Trieste, as though history itself might be outrun.
Synopsis
Count Ludwig von Leun-Walram, a German army officer, meets Marguerite Clairon, an actress, while at a watering place on the border line of France. She falls in love with him and reveals her feelings. He rejects her in such a kindly way that she only loves him the more. Later, the count meets Marcelle de Lembach, daughter of a French general, whom he had known in childhood. He falls deeply in love with her. While he is still courting her, however, war breaks out between Germany and France and he is called back to his command. Marcelle is intensely patriotic and goes to the front with her father. She leads a troop of soldiers against a German scouting party when the officer is killed. She is captured by the count, who sends her safely back to the French lines. Paul D'Arblay, a spy, is one of the suitors of Mlle. Clairon, whom she hates. He swears that he will get her into his power. She joins the French army as a Red Cross nurse. On the battlefield she finds the count wounded and nurses him until he is almost recovered. She then arranges to send him back to his command. Arblay discovers this and threatens to denounce the count as a spy unless she yields to his wishes. She consents in order to save the count, promising to meet him at the home of her aunt nearby. He goes there that evening and finds her dead. She has kept her promise, but takes poison rather than submit to him. The count meets Marcelle after the war is over and they are betrothed.
