Summary
A Belle Époque château becomes a crucible of exquisite cruelty when Henri Durand, whose blood runs colder than the Loire in January, recasts his wife Marion’s effortless luminosity as a moral contagion. Every casual smile she bestows on male guests—poets, diplomats, the American botanist Tom Franklin—echoes inside Durand’s skull like cathedral bells hacked by a dull blade. Encouraged by a spurned rival who craves collateral damage, Durand stages a public humiliation so surgical that Marion swallows poison rather than breathe the same air as her accuser. A dozen years of frost follow: the widower sculpts his only child, Beatrice, into a porcelain simulacrum of the dead woman, then uncorks the perfume of vengeance when the now-seasoned explorer Tom re-enters the province. Under covert tutelage Beatrice plays coquette, lures Tom toward betrothal, and ignites the same green inferno that once consumed her father. Yet in the decisive heartbeat, as Tom lifts a pistol to his temple, Beatrice’s rehearsed artifice shatters; confession spills, love roars back, and Durand—handed a belated letter that exonerates the American—feels the ground tilt beneath his vendetta. Permission for marriage is grudgingly granted, the curtain falls on a family portrait cracked but still standing.
Synopsis
Henri Durand of the French nobility is insanely jealous of his beautiful American wife Marion's innocent conversations with her many male admirers. Durand provokes her suicide when, egged on by a rejected suitor of Marion's, he accuses her of having illicit relations with her visiting childhood friend, Tom Franklin. Twelve years later, when Tom returns after a long expedition, the vengeful Durand coaches his daughter Beatrice, who resembles Marion, to court Tom. After they become engaged, Durand forces Beatrice to flirt with other men, but when Tom, overcome with jealousy, is about to kill himself, Beatrice admits her real love for him. Durand is at first furious with Beatrice's supposed betrayal, but he is pacified when he receives a confession from Marion's refused suitor that absolves Tom of any guilt. Durand then permits the marriage of Beatrice and Tom.
