Summary
“The Supreme Temptation” plunges the viewer into the fraught existence of Herbert DuBois, a Parisian medical student whose early impetuous marriage to the vivacious grisette Annette unravels into a bitter separation. Returning to America, Herbert confronts the devastating suicide of his father, a victim of financial ruin, thrusting him into the role of family patriarch for his mother and sister Lydia. A semblance of stability emerges with his engagement to Florence, the lawyer’s daughter, and Lydia’s nascent romance with Milton. Yet, the past, embodied by a French milliner, resurfaces with news of Annette’s supposed demise, paving the way for Herbert’s marriage to Florence and a burgeoning career as a prominent medical college head. The narrative pivots sharply with the shocking revelation of Florence’s pregnancy, juxtaposed against the grim task of performing an autopsy on an unidentified young woman. In a moment of chilling recognition, Herbert discovers the body is Annette’s, not deceased but locked in a cataleptic trance—a hereditary affliction. This macabre discovery ignites the film’s titular moral crucible: the “supreme temptation” to discreetly end Annette’s life with a surgeon’s precise, almost imperceptible gesture, thereby erasing his inconvenient past and safeguarding his newfound happiness. His inherent morality, however, prevails, compelling him to alert his colleagues to her living state. The ensuing medical intervention resurrects Annette, casting Herbert into an agonizing limbo, a torturous wait for either her final demise or her full recovery, which would inevitably shatter his meticulously rebuilt life. The tension culminates in a cruel twist of fate: Annette is declared dead, almost simultaneously with the joyous announcement of his son’s birth, orchestrating a brutal, yet ultimately liberating, resolution to his profound ethical dilemma.
Synopsis
Herbert DuBois, a young medical student in Paris, falls in love with and marries Annette, a grisette. They do not get along well, however, and he later secures a separation from her. He returns to America to find his father greatly worried over impending financial ruin. The blow falls and DuBois Senior kills himself, leaving Herbert to care for his mother and sister Lydia. Some time later he falls in love with Florence, the daughter of the family lawyer, and his friend Milton is fascinated by Lydia. M. Picard, a French milliner, pays Herbert a visit and informs him of Annette's death; he and Florence are then married. A year later, Herbert has been promoted to the head of the medical college and he learns that he is soon to become a father. Annette has moved to America. While DuBois is preparing to perform an autopsy on a young woman who died suddenly, he discovers, to his horror, that it is Annette and she is not dead, but in a cataleptic trance, a disease to which her family was subject. Then the supreme temptation comes to him to kill her with a slight movement of his scalpel and thus remove forever the dark past, but his better nature conquers, and after calling the others' attention to the body, he goes out. Restoratives are quickly applied and Annette comes back to life. Then follows an agony of suspense for Herbert. Will she live and spoil his present happiness, or will she die? After what seems eternity, one of the doctors informs him that Annette has died, and rushing up to his wife's room, he is stopped by the nurse who tells him that a son has been born to them.
