The Magnificent Sin—
André Tellier's debut novel. Claude Kendall's New York Press, popular for its sensational topics ranging from serial killer lesbians to conspiracy theories, published The Magnificent Sin on May 26, 1930 for $2.50. Prints by New York : Grosset & Dunlap for $0.75 in 1930 and London : John Long in 1931 followed. In 1953, Pyramid reprinted the title as A Woman of Paris with occasional revisions.
Complete Summary
Chapter Summary
An Episode
pg. 7-10
Sylvia Wyndham, exhausted, delirious, and heavily pregnant, rents a decrepit room on the Rue St. Denis. The renter, Madame Estelle Bouchard, silently gloats about overcharging her, then goes to fetch the midwife Aimee to make a referral premium. As the narration jumps between memory and nonsense, Sylvia reflects on her theater experience as Camille and that her child belongs to a married man named Frederick. She dies giving birth to the blue-eyed baby in 1885.
*This chapter was removed in A Woman of Paris.
BOOK ONE.
Chapter 1
pg. 23-28
Jeanne, sent to fetch bread for Madame Bouchard, is distracted by her current tryst with Antoine, the baker's son. She placates her caretaker by announcing that she has taken a job at Madame Renaud's couturier business as a seamstress, where she will make extraordinary gowns for the two of them in time for Easter. This appeal succeeds, so she leaves to contemplate her lie about Antoine: she had said she had strolled the Right Bank with him while they were actually making love. In addition, Antoine is too genuine for Jeanne's liking—she is more interested in sex than love, but he is also too poor to suit her daydreams of riches and beauty.
*In A Woman of Paris, "An Episode" is summarized in a paragraph. There is also an added paragraph of Jeanne reflecting over how she led Antoine through his sexual hesitancy and inexperience to make him a better lover.
Chapter 2
pg. 29-34
Madame Boucher cuts a length of lace to sell to Madame Duprez, whose daughter Suzanne will be married soon. Duprez warns Boucher of Jeanne and Antoine's indiscretions, but Boucher dismisses the gossip. When Jeanne returns home late again, Boucher confronts her about Antoine. Jeanne upholds her lies and says that she loves Antoine but never slept with him; Boucher believes it. Afterwards, Jeanne destroys some of Duprez's laundry in revenge.
Chapter 3
pg. 25-41
Boucher and Jeanne successfully turn heads at Easter Sunday Mass in their showy outfits. With typical cruelty, she sends her husband home to tend to the closed shop. Then, emboldened by their looks, she and Jeanne rent a carriage to drive around Rue de la Paix and go for tea at the Crillon. Jeanne declares that one day she will live there.
*There is a minor change to a thought the waiter in the Crillon has towards Boucher. In A Woman of Paris, he thinks "She is plump, but in the right places" (p16) instead of, "For myself, I like to have them plump in such and such places" (p41). Fatphobic diction later in the novel is intact.
Chapter 4
pg. 42-46
Back at home, Monsieur Boucher steals his wife's brandy. He reflects that her control of him extends to forbidding him alcohol and threatening divorce, and his addled mind conjures a fantasy where he will threaten her with divorce instead for the right to drink. Almost immediately regret strikes him. He returns the bottle, rigs a waxen mannequin with a gift for Madame Boucher, and takes the mannequin to their bedroom. When Madame Boucher returns, he pretends the mannequin is a persistent prostitute to make her jealous. He and the mannequin tumble down the stairs. The fall kills him.
Chapter 5
pg. 47-52
Chapter 6
pg. 53-66
The shop closes. Madame Boucher arranges the funeral lavishly and with little grief as her greed returns to her. She is relieved by her freedom of him and wishes to be free of Jeanne so she may go and live with her sister-in-law. Marrying Jeanne becomes her ultimate goal. She identifies the singing teacher Pierre Batou as the only proper match.
Pierre receives a notice from Madame Boucher that she will be coming to visit him. He hopes she is beautiful: he is tired that all of his lovers are also his voice pupils.
When she arrives, however, Boucher disgusts him. He is barely any more willing to teach her unknown daughter, but soon yields his empty protests about not accepting a pupil without hearing her voice and that he might not teach her in his home with no chaperones. When Jeanne arrives, he is struck by her body and demeanor. Although seventeen, she seems to view him with a confident, sensual appraisal. He thinks he sees in her an actress he saw in his youth who had sung as Camille.
Riding home, Jeanne thinks of Batou. He is attractive and can offer more to her want of passion than simple Antoine. She had commanded Antoine and gained vast sexual experience from him—but she had not known the love or passion with depth. She breaks off her relationship despite Antoine's begging and promises to marry her—a thing she would despise—and leaves to her bed in anticipation of the next day.
Chapter 7
pg. 67-78
Pierre and Jeanne discuss that Boucher seems to tolerate their relationship. They get out of bed and, as Jeanne refuses to practice singing, Pierre reflects that after seven months he is still madly infatuated with Jeanne. She maintains her rooms apart from him despite his attempts for her to take a room in Passy and occasionally is possessed with an indomitable drive to improve her singing. Madame Boucher fears a musical career where Jeanne would not be married, but is still pleased when Pierre introduces Jeanne to his famous contemporaries.
Jeanne supposes she will marry Pierre. She speaks with him about their love and her suspicion that one day he will no longer be interested in her. As Pierre assures her of his affections, Madame Boucher storms in. She accuses Pierre of seducing her daughter, threatens to turn him into the police, and ignores all declarations of love until Pierre says that they will be married. Boucher completely changes. Jovial and insistent, she swears she will cover all expenses.
*In the original book, Pierre worries that Aimee will tell Boucher that Jeanne is not spending the night with her (p67), but this line is changed in A Woman of Paris to eliminate that rooming arrangement (p30). In addition, Jeanne no longer wonders if Pierre will fall out of love with her and he declares that he would always would. These sentences are replaced with a few sensual lines about Pierre experiencing a sudden unplaced fear, his arousal, and his embrace of Jeanne. Boucher interrupts them.
Chapter 8
pg. 79-87
Jeanne confesses her morning sickness to Madame Boucher, who in turn reveals that she has sold their shop and home. Boucher warns Jeanne that many men change demeanor when their pleasure turns into the responsibility of a child. She observed a change in her own husband when she became pregnant although each one ended in a miscarriage. To support Jeanne, Boucher moves in, hosting the greatest interest in the baby. Pierre acknowledges that a son would be a boon to inherit his family title. He admits that Boucher in the house is a bother while Jeanne laments the boring limits of pregnant life for a child she was not keen on caring for. Under the care of the same midwife as her mother, Jeanne gives birth to a boy.
Chapter 9
pg. 88-95
Jeanne has almost no interest in the baby Pierre. Batou adores the child and grows colder towards towards Jeanne although they still have sex. One night, while Jeanne asks him to stop coddling the child and come with her somewhere fun for a night, Batou confesses that he wishes Boucher would not live with them any longer. Boucher hears him from the next room and confronts him in a passionate lecture about her service towards the child, the organization of the home, and her vast finances. Batou grovels for forgiveness from Boucher and promises Jeanne to go out again.
At a party, people constantly wonder who Jeanne is. A sophisticated man with gray hair approaches and asks her to lunch at the Ritz; at first she refuses, but she changes her mind as they converse.
Chapter 10
pg. 96-100
Jeanne refuses to talk of her luncheon until Boucher's pestering annoys her enough to reveal the man was Monsieur Ballard, the director of the Ballarde Opera Troupe. Boucher insists that Jeanne must sing for him and find her career, but Jeanne laments that there is no future for her now that she is married with a child. Unswayed, Boucher declares that she will work her manipulations on this man as well.
Chapter 11
pg. 101-109
Boucher understands that for Ballard to have an interest, Jeanne's voice must have something special to it. She urges Jeanne to sing for him—he is wealthier than Pierre and is the path to a lavish career. Jeanne she manages to impress and seduce him. He offers to arrange everything in her career for her if she wills it. Boucher insists that Jeanne will be able to obtain Pierre's permission, but Jeanne rebukes her. What will happen in her life will be her decision to make, not by Pierre's permission or Boucher's manipulations.
Chapter 12
pg. 110-118
Jeanne evaluates her choices. Ballard is leaving sooner than he intended, so she has until the next morning to send him her answer. She regards her child with disinterest but tolerance, then concludes that she views Pierre similarly to Antoine. He has served his purpose, but in the end she does not love him and sexual interest in him is exhausted. Still, Ballard does not stir her love—he only offers her the avenue to fame and riches she has always desired.
However, Jeanne would miss the house and its security. If she failed this singing gambit, she would return a hated woman to the society of her current friends. Boucher interrupts and says that she could not fail. Pierre, like all men, will be unfaithful in time; Boucher will check in on the baby; even if Jeanne fails to meet Ballard's wishes, her beauty will still attract men to the music hall. A bouquet with an anonymous note arrives to hope for a favorable reply.
Jeanne decides to leave. She abandons all her things, tells Boucher to pack, and leaves for the Crillon without a goodbye Pierre.
BOOK TWO.
Chapter 1
pg. 121-131
Jeanne, Ballard, and Boucher have been in Rome for three months. Jeanne's singing talent is improving under the eccentric direction of a new voice tutor, Ballard claims he admires Jeanne's ambition, and Boucher chaperones them in public. Soon, however, Ballard admits that his lies about valuing physical pleasure over love were false. He loves Jeanne and wishes to marry, but she retorts that nothing may ever bind her but herself. Even though they are both married to spouses they rarely think about and do not care for, Jeanne says that she will likely never marry again—marriage will no longer matter so much in the future, she predicts. Ballard quits the argument.
*There is an added paragraph in A Woman of Paris where Jeanne reflects with anxiety that her want of sex has increased. She dreads that it is nymphomania, but is comforted by the fact that Ballard is an agreeable partner and that they both can easily maintain public opinion through travel.
Chapter 2
pg. 132-137
Boucher and Ballard compliment Jeanne after a successful show. Another manager enters—a short, whiskered man named Monsieur Surat—and offers Jeanne a lead role as Catherine the Great. The production will be in Paris and written by a debut writer. She takes Ballard's advice into account as she rejects it and asks him never to leave her. Silently, Ballard fears that if Surat had been younger and more handsome, Jeanne would be the one to leave.
*A Woman of Paris adds a few lines at the very end. Jeanne senses Ballard's fear and commands him to relax with a kiss.
Chapter 3
pg. 138-142
Jeanne daydreams of accepting Surat's proposed role but Ballard continues to advise her from it and any other roles. He gives her kind presents and teaches her more of music, manners, and technique. After he introduces her to a refined and elderly woman, Jeanne realizes that she desires the same serene poise, not the bold poses she knows men flock to.
Chapter 4
pg. 143-147
Boucher flourishes under the excitement of the theatre. She takes lovers from the young theatre cast, encourages rumors of a scandalous past, and vehemently goads Jeanne to go to Paris and take a role apart from Ballard's company. Surat's composer comes, bringing the production's young Russian tenor, and pleads with her; she says she cannot be persuaded and that the decision is only hers. Still, the tenor's faun-like manner attracts her, and she reconsiders the opportunity again since it meant singing with him. Ballard worries that Jeanne will see that his advice comes from jealousy, but she promises to finish the season with him.
Chapter 5
pg. 148-160
In 1906, Ballard receives a lucrative offer for a New York theatre to put on a show. He wishes to tell Jeanne, but not while in their hotel or around others, so he invites her out. She refuses, citing Boucher's planned trip to visit a distant cousin with her, so Ballard threatens to take a young ballet dancer with him instead. Jeanne orders him never to do that, and their bickering is soothed when Ballard offers to carry Jeanne to her bath. They decide to go together after all to the inn, where he tells her of the news. Jeanne lacks his enthusiasm. She wants to sing in Paris before the States. Ballard prompts her by declaring his love, but she dismisses it. He loves her body and soul but she does not have as high a regard of him, and if she goes with him to New York, it is for her own benefit and not for his affections.
Chapter 6
pg. 161-163
Jeanne and Ballard discuss the New York offer. Jeanne says that she does not trust that Ballard will remain infatuated with her in New York. He insists that he will, and that it would be impossible for him to put on a production of the New York scale in Paris. She agrees to go.
Chapter 7
pg. 164-174
The opera troupe holds a party to celebrate the final performance of the season but Jeanne refuses to go. Boucher dresses herself up gaudily and toddles out of the room to go as Ballard comes in. He asks if she is happy; she says she thinks so. Boucher interrupts, Ballard accompanies her to shoo her out, and Jeanne returns to her mirror. Tired, she comments that she is a mess; a new voice disagrees with her. The young Russian tenor sits in her chair, quips that he has bribed the doorman, and scoffs when she threatens him with the promised return of her "husband." To her annoyed dismissals, he tells her that sailing for New York is a foolish decision when Surat's company in Paris will be such a success with him, Theodore Karyloff. She orders him out and he skips to the window, revealing that he had climbed the fire escape to get to her, and that he has no money to bribe with. He teases her once more, then leaves. Ballard enters with an empty comment.
*In A Woman of Paris, when Jeanne orders Theodore to leave, he grabs and kisses her. She passionately returns the kiss, but when he rips at her neckline, she shoves him away and slaps him. He exits through the window, leaving a shaken and thoughtful Jeanne behind.
Chapter 8
pg. 175-178
Boucher is too hungover and irritable to pack her bags so Jeanne does it for her. The memory of Theodore keeps Jeanne in a good mood even as Ballard shoots down her requests to visit Paris on the way to the States. Jeanne packs the dress she wore when she first came to Rome with Ballard although it is too old to wear; she refuses to explain why when Ballard inquires.
Chapter 9
pg. 179-185
Just one day before sailing, Jeanne is miserable. Paris still lures her, and Ballard is silently thrilled to soon have her severed from that temptation. Jeanne speaks rudely of everything, rebuffs Boucher's nonsensical fashion comments, and shuts herself in her room. A knock at the door reveals Theodore, come to say goodbye and to harry her with nonsense. She responds rudely and irritably until he reveals his motive: that he is in love with her and will not leave without her, or else he will shoot her and himself with a revolver. Jeanne reflects, after he kisses her, that she would despise being forever with Ballard in the States. She lies to herself that she is going because she will be killed otherwise. Confident, Theodore says he will meet her at the train station with her ticket, then leaves. Jeanne checks to see if Boucher was listening; she is nowhere to be found. Euphoric, Jeanne declares that she will leave everything in her current life behind and go to Paris.
*In A Woman of Paris, the kiss is expanded to a paragraph: she kisses him and tears at his shirt as he carries her to the divan. For the first time, Jeanne is no longer the aggressor in sex: "Karyloff had become master of the situation. He would not be denied again" (p97). A fade to black follows with the only in-chapter jump-cut in the novel. The next paragraph resumes, removing a bit of dialogue from Theodore that Jeanne had loved him since she met him (p184), and also removing the paragraph of Jeanne thinking about being stuck with Ballard and under threat of death. The scene resumes exactly.
Chapter 10
pg. 186-190
Jeanne tells Ballard that she will go to Paris. He takes the announcement in turn, knowing it would be useless to stop her, and knowing that in his heart he could never make her unhappy. The New York trip is settled for him whether she goes or not; he will also continue loving her. He asks again if she loves him. Jeanne does not respond, so he retracts his question. Afterwards, Jeanne cries as she gathers her things and leaves, but Boucher and Theodore await her outside the gates. Boucher had eavesdropped from the other room. The trio departs for Paris.
Chapter 10
pg. 191-196
Boucher and Jeanne customarily bicker over Boucher's gaudy fashion until Theodore arrives. He tells Jeanne that the newest ballerina is beautiful, arousing her jealousy into a conversation about fidelity. She believes his lack of jealousy belies a lack of regard for her, but he insists that he has no reason to be jealous because he loves her and does not think it worth being jealous when the conductor sends her flowers. Jeanne apologizes, but Theodore admits that he was truly enraged by the flowers and had just returned from threatening the conductor from further flirtations. In addition, he warns her that he would beat her if they argue again like this.
Chapter 11
pg. 197-200
The opera is a great success. Jeanne and Theodore treat with famous and outrageous guests before they retreat, including a suit-adorned lesbian who invites Jeanne to Capri.
Chapter 12
pg. 201-207
There is a pounding at the door soon after Boucher awakes with Surat beside her. Boucher opens the door to a tall, masculine woman who insists on seeing Jeanne. The noise summons Jeanne from the next room, but she also does not know the woman. The stranger demands for Theodore next and declares that she is his wife. Theodore meanders out, amused by the situation, and confirms Madame Karyloff's words. She insists that he come with her to the hotel where her four children from a past marriage wait. Boucher and Surat retreat, then Theodore goes to dress. He kisses Jeanne before he leaves, and she remains at the window, crying and laughing.
BOOK THREE.
Chapter 1
pg. 211-216
The opera as Catherine was not the greatest success, but the gossip and reports invented by her new publicists carried her image internationally. She is rich, successful, and without a steady lover. Meanwhile, Theodore is ruled by his wife, who secures him after each show to prevent further drama.
*An extra two sentences follow the description of her first transient and inconsequential lover, Bobbie, in A Woman of Paris. It says that he reminds Jeanne of Antoine, and that she is again the aggressor and master in the relationship, unlike with Theodore.
Chapter 2
pg. 217-223
Exhausted after her performance, Jeanne tries to ignore the knock at her door. At last she opens it, expecting party acquaintances. Pierre stands in the doorway, slightly unkempt, and enters to talk. He bores her immensely. Jeanne talks coolly to him and tries to get him to leave, but he is determined to stay. Their son is five years old now and Pierre still loves her. Jeanne says she will send him money to care for the child, but will never return with him. Pierre grabs her by the throat, screams at her as he chokes her, and is only stopped when Boucher enters with a concierge and a threat about calling the authorities. He insults Boucher as he is pulled out of the room by the concierge. He threatens that he and his son will never see Jeanne again. Jeanne faints.
Chapter 3
pg. 224-227
Boucher spotted Jeanne with a new man but had not seen his face, so she is determined to uncover him the next day. She sends Surat backstage to get a look at him. The young man is Cinne, a designer with pink hair. Boucher reels from the news, and when a messenger boy named Philippe arrives, she accuses him of having a pink wig. Jeanne leaves her to her delusions; neither of the boys are her lover.
*In A Woman of Paris, an additional paragraph states that Phillipe is one of Jeanne's lovers. She regrets that he is young, but she is desperate and shattered after her last relationship failures. The narrator assures that both she and Phillipe thought it a good arrangement that Phillipe received a sexual education from an experienced woman.
Chapter 4
pg. 228-238
Jeanne awakes miserable on her thirtieth birthday. She says it has been a year since her last regular lover, and that now she wants a single man to last her the rest of her life. She does not choose her lovers for friendship, and she never truly loved them either, but she wants both of those things now. She directs her anger on the out-of-tune piano, orders Boucher to call the company and fix it, but ends up storming to her car to drive to the piano company instead. The company is closed, but she sees someone inside and accosts him as soon as he exits. The young man is a friend of the owner and came to the shop to practice piano, so he cannot help her, but he recognizes Jeanne as the inspiration for two of his compositions. They enter the store together and he plays the first song—a melancholic tune inspired by Chopin's waltzes. When she sings to it, he angrily interrupts her. The song is delicate, not operatic, and she needs to change her style of singing for it.
She is astounded by his severity, but his flattering belief that she has enough range to accompany his song convinces her. He kisses her on both cheeks and compliments her when she succeeds. Opera is too false for her, he claims, and she should continue singing more intelligent music like his. Jeanne is again flattered. The young man says he will continue to coach her and that he will come to her home the next morning. Astonishing herself, Jeanne goes to bed early to be able to welcome him the next day.
Chapter 5
pg. 239-243
The young man arrives, explains he only has two hours, and begins rattling on the piano. Jeanne finds his name atop the sheet music he brings: Henri Boutelier. The first song he plays is an interpretation based on the pestering of his landlady. Jeanne wishes to give him money but thinks better of it. He instructs her on her voice and technique in ways that enraged her in the past with others, then agrees to meet her backstage that night at the opera.
Chapter 6
pg. 244-246
Henri says that he is both in love with Jeanne and a musician, but he cannot combine both of those things by moving in with her. He needs his own place to practice even in Jeanne does not like the place he currently rents. They bicker until they decide that Jeanne will hire him as her pianist, and he will spend that income on a place to rent. Henri embraces her and says he loves her.
*In A Woman of Paris, the line where Henri threatens to leave in Jeanne buys him a place without his permission is replaced by asking why she insists he must become her gigolo. Additionally, the final line by Henri about loving Jeanne is replaced by a few sentences where he says he would be a fool to refuse her. Jeanne pulls him into bed and tells him to show her that he loves her.
Chapter 7
pg. 247-249
Henri and Jeanne go to England, where they enjoy further musical successes. Jeanne frets that she does not love Henri with the same wholeheartedness that he gives her, and her foreboding heightens as they make the trip back to France. She notes that her son must be 11 years old by now.
The narrator says that it is just before the war, contradicting Jeanne's age. According to Book 3 Chapter 4, she is 30, so the year should be 1915.
Chapter 8
pg. 250-257
Boucher greets them when they return to Paris, then urges Jeanne to her hotel room to meet a guest. It is Ballard. Jeanne surprises herself with her maternal worry towards him: he had been sick and is thin and tired. He explains that the season in New York was a decent success, that many of troupe left him for higher paying positions, and that he was now a farmer in Alberta. He must leave in another week to return to his wife in New York—in another narrative contradiction, Jeanne starts that she had not know he was married.
Jeanne asks if he loves his wife and Ballard replies that no, he believes that a person can only truly love once. As always, Jeanne says that she has never loved. In her mind, she lists her sexual affairs: Antoine, Pierre, Theodore. She leaves out Ballard and wonders why. Ballard leaves.
She hates that her past has been returning to her lately. On her next birthday she will be 32. Jeanne goes to see Henri, but he is limp on his bed, eyes shut and with an expression as if he had been crying. She apologizes to him and explains that Ballard is a friend and that she had only wanted to know how the troupe was doing. Henri does not respond. Jeanne shakes him and realizes that he is dead.
*In A Woman of Paris, a few sentences are shaved off the end of the chapter where Jeanne gives a dazed staccato account of people coming to take Henri's body away while she clung to him to stop them.
Chapter 9
pg. 258-259
Jeanne wastes away, ill in a hospital. Boucher cares for her, no longer in her outrageous clothing and allowing her hair to gray. Ballard attempts to stay longer, but at last he must return to New York. He has Boucher promise to take care of Jeanne.
BOOK FOUR.
Chapter 1
pg. 263-265
Jeanne moves in and out of her illness while still taking part in the theatre. The war passes in a haze, but she remembers that Theodore was killed in it. His wife had asked her for money. She tries to find Pierre but fails. Boucher faints and never wakes. At her funeral, Jeanne sees that most of the people in mourning are already mourning members of their own family. She continues to sing, annoyed by publicity, and annoyed by the admirers who want to enter her bed.
*The note of Madame Karyloff asking for money is removed, and Boucher has a heart attack rather than faint in A Lady of Paris.
Chapter 2
pg. 266-268
At a small, sleepy resort, Jeanne is approached by a woman about forty years old. The woman asks her about her dress and introduces herself as Margaret Deewes. They have dinner together and suit each other's moods perfectly and intimately. Jeanne takes Margaret on tour with her.
*A Woman of Paris removes this chapter.
Chapter 3
pg. 269-271
Margaret and Jeanne compliment each other perfectly. Jeanne no longer has any interest in singing and hesitates to obey her contract with Surat to sing in Paris. Meanwhile, Margaret wishes to advise her but cant; instead, she courts a wealthy man, Carl Phllips, who she knows could not love her only for her own fortune. They are married with only Jeanne as witness, and Jeanne will miss no one in her life more than Margaret.
*A Woman of Paris removes this chapter.
Chapter 4
pg. 272-276
Jeanne mourns her lost relationship with Margaret. She writes to Ballard of her grief and of her disinterest with life. She has tried everything and lost everything. Ballard advises that she has seen everything and tried nothing. Jeanne travels, forty-four years old, seeing Pierre in every man she passes. Noting the irony, she longs to return to their home in Passy. Margaret had a domestic life now, too, but Pierre had sworn never to let Jeanne see their son again. Jeanne returns to Passy but the house has been sold and no one knows of Pierre.
*In A Woman of Paris, all mentions of Margaret are removed. A few paragraphs contemplating the changes brought by time are also removed.
Chapter 5
pg. 277-280
Margaret invites Jeanne to her home. She is strong, healthy, and busy with all the duties of a mother. As she simultaneously hates the mania of celebrity life, Jeanne wonders how Margaret could sit and sew so patiently. She notices that the jacket Margaret is making looks similar to what Boucher would wear, and Jeanne bursts out crying. She misses so many people that she is unable to speak about—Margaret asks her to stay and share her past so that she may help. Jeanne refuses, knowing that staying in this warmth of the lifestyle she abandoned would make her feel worse. She leaves, sells everything in her apartment, and wanders Paris.
*A Woman of Paris removes this chapter.
Chapter 6
pg. 281-298
Surat telephones her. He says he has a new lead role for her by a new writer. She refuses. Jeanne has been preparing to leave Paris forever, so she will not stay for another opera. After Surat sends her the score anyway, she sees that it is Theodora by Baron des Champs. Interesting, she thinks, then continues packing. Boucher's trunk is among her things, and she opens it to find old theatre programs of all her roles—she burns them, wishing she could burn her memories as easily.
She cries over mementos until her maid enters, announcing that a young man has come to see her. It is Baron des Champs, a twenty-two year old man. He says that he has written the opera for her and that it will not be produced without her. Jeanne admits that she never opened the opera at all; he saddens and wishes only for her to hear it, at least, if she will not perform it.
He plays the song for her. She acknowledges that it is decent—promising but beleaguered by inexperience. She explores her thoughts for several pages: her loneliness, her blame of Boucher and Ballard for changing her life's directory, theories of music and happiness—they all relate back to her child. When the song ends, she does not know how to refuse him, so she offers to sing to him instead of sing his opera.
The long strings of thought switch to the baron. He reflects on Jeanne's life and how his father told him that he would not want to meet her. She was Karyloff's mistress, and Henri's mistress, and a much different person than he imagined her to be.
At the end of the song, Jeanne says that she will not sing his opera, but she will follow its trajectory. She asks him to leave the score with her so she may sing a bit of it by herself. He leaves her, crushed, and she collapses into a fit of sobbing.
*A Woman of Paris removes everything about her packing and jumps directly to the baron's arrival. It also eliminates all of Jeanne's and the baron's stream of consciousness.
Chapter 7
pg. 299-310
The next morning the Baron des Champs comes. He is a much older man this time. She recognizes him as Pierre. He tells her that the young man was their son and that she must not sing the opera. His peace has been won at great cost over the years and he will not let her shatter it. Jeanne, in want of peace, understands Pierre's fear, but she also comes to believe that her life has culminated properly to this moment. Her fame and experience will be enough to make the career of her son.
Jeanne realizes that, like in the past, Pierre wants to control her but can't. He threatens to tell their son of all her shameful affairs to crush the boy's admiration of her. It seems like he may attack her again, but she has no fear—she would rather have nothing than not have her son.
She tells Pierre her decision: she will sing the opera once and then leave Paris and their lives forever. When Pierre objects, she ignores him and orders him to leave. He does. Jeanne calls her son and tells him that she will sing his opera.
Chapter 8
pg. 311-315
Jeanne devotes her entire being to the opera. She spends every waking moment with her son, practicing, strolling through the Bois, eating meals together, meeting contemporaries together. Young Pierre tells her that he has never been happier. Two women he loves are in his life now: Jeanne, the simple and beautiful woman, and Madame Carnaeu, the hot-blooded opera star. There are only two more weeks until she must leave him forever, so Jeanne resolves to live and think only in the moment.
Chapter 9
pg. 316-321
For the night of the opera, she is Carneau. The glittering audience falls in love with the entire performance, and the curtain calls are followed with incessant invitations to dinner or shows or parties. Young Pierre is showered with praise. Everyone loves Carneau and wishes to see her tomorrow, but she does not see anything in the next day. She begins her own solitary life again in the morning.
Chapter 10
pg. 322-325
Young Pierre enters the room ecstatic from their success. Before he can introduce his father from the hall, Jeanne reveals that she is leaving in the morning and will never sing his Theodora again. He cries in disbelief. She allowed him to plan for future shows and to dream of his time with her all while knowing it would never happen. Young Pierre flees from the room and the older Pierre steps inside.
Chapter 11
pg. 326-329
Jeanne knows she loves Pierre when she sees him. She had always loved him, but she despised the way he did not think he could love her and also the world. As she continues to make her way to leave, he confesses as well: he loves her, and he knows that once he stifled her like a coward, but now he understands and does not want her to go. His kisses her as he completes her sentence: "It is a happy ending"—"of a magnificent sin."
*A Woman of Paris ends here.
Chapter 11
pg. 330-331
Jeanne and Pierre step outside of the dressing room and walk through the opera to find their son. People call to her as Carnaeu, but she corrects them: she is the Baroness des Champs. She feels as though all the past had dissolved from her and that she is resuming her life in the home in Passy with her husband and son.
