Een lach en een traan

Summary

Venice at carnival time. Pierrette falls in love with the artist Mario Mari and accepts his offer to share his attic with him and become his model. He makes one condition: they shall part without bitterness if need arises. Mario's painting "Laughter and Tears" wins the first prize at a competition, and, flushed with success, he leaves Pierrette and goes to Paris to paint the portrait of the beautiful Countess Sonia. Pierrette finds life insupportable and follows him there, only to be rebuffed. At a ball, after she accidentally meets a former admirer, Captain Lombardie, she tells Mario that she has become the mistress of this Italian officer. His passion rekindled by jealousy, Mario visits Pierrette in her flat and stabs her. No longer desiring to live, he gives himself up to the police, from whom he is overjoyed to learn next morning that Pierrette was only slightly wounded. Pierrette confesses to Mario that her story of an affair was made up to spite him and that she has always loved him. A reconciliation follows, and, returning to Venice, the lovers forget their sorrows and find happiness together.