- A man whose wife has died remarries, and his new wife has a daughter of her own from a previous marriage. The man's young son, however, who loved his mother deeply and misses her terribly, resents his father's new wife, not wanting her to take the place of his beloved mother, and makes life miserable for his new stepsister..—frankfob2@yahoo.com
- A man whose wife has died remarries, and his new wife has a daughter of her own from a previous marriage. The man's young son, however, who loved his mother deeply and misses her terribly, resents his father's new wife, not wanting her to take the place of his beloved mother.—yusufpiskin
- Jean and Pierrette, the two children of Pierre Amsler, mayor of a mountain village in the Haut-Valais (Switzerland), are about 12 and 4 years old when her mother dies. While Pierrette fails to understand the situation and believes her nanny telling her that her mother is on a voyage, Jean is deeply shaken, nearly losing himself in long and bitter mourning. His father, at first hardly less desperate than Jean, quickly realizes that he is unable to continue his former life while at the same time mourning for his wife: He feels overburdened by his duties as the mayor, his new domestic duties, the lonely raising of his children and the depressive mood filling his home since the death of his wife. When half a year has passed, he decides to marry a widow having lost her husband nearly at the same time - this seems to be both a marriage of convenience and of love.
Seeing that his son is still inconsolably mourning his late mother, Pierre fails to muster the courage to talk to the boy about his plan. Instead, he sends the boy away with his friend, the village's priest, when the priest is visiting the neighbouring valley for a few weeks, and puts the burden to break the news to the child on the priest.
When the boy comes back home, he is intensely looking forward to see his sister and his father again and at the same time very curious what may have changed at home. Unfortunately, Arlette, the daughter of his new mother, of about the same age as Jean, is alone at home when the boy comes back. Apparently, she fails to recognize the him, she refuses to open the door to him and is slow, even reluctant to understand her error. When she finally opens the door, he is enraged and arrogant and she is quite intimidated. Thus, they start mistrusting and disliking each other from the first.
Jean soon finds out that, during his absence, he has been treated with astonishing lack of respect. Arlette is now using his room, and his parents have assigned another room to him, Arlette is using part of his toys, and there are several other minor changes hurting him. As his new mother is warmly welcoming him and clumsily trying to tell Jean and Arlette to like each other, it seems that the disrespect was rather a matter of thoughtlessness and insensitivity than of malice.
All the same, the dislike, rivalry and jealousy of the two children becomes worse and worse, little Pierrette siding with her brother. During several episodes of nasty behaviour from both sides, dislike turns through malice into hate. Finally, Jean plays a terrible prank on Arlette. On a sleigh ride with their father, Arlette falls asleep, and Jean makes her doll fall off the sleigh. Coming home, Arlette can hardly fight back her tears, but her mother, once more rather insensitive, tells her she's just too old to cry about a doll.
When the parents think that both children have gone to bed, Jean lies to Arlette that he has seen her doll near the bridge, hoping that the parents will become angered at her for leaving the house during the night. But Arlette, desperately searching for her doll in the dark, loses her track. When she doesn't come back, Jean is tortured by pangs of remorse. Finally, he confesses his evil deed to his father, who at once raises the whole village. The villagers find Arlette just before she loses her conscience due to hypothermia.
Neither of the parents utters a word of reproach against Jean, but both fail to hide their contempt from him. After two days of brooding silence, Jean feels unable to endure his guilt any longer. He writes a letter of farewell to his father and tries to sneak out of the house, but right on the sill, he runs into Arlette and Pierrette. Reluctantly, he tells them that he is leaving for good and gives the letter to Arlette. Arlette takes her little sister by the hand and runs uphill to her mother who is just returning with the fresh milk from the mountain pasture.
The mother, dropping everything, follows Jean, but before she can reach him, he has already cast himself into the mountain creek. Risking her own life, she follows him into the water and barely succeeds to carry him out of the torrent. After she carried him home, dried, warmed and consoled him, Jean, for the first time, embraces her, accepting her forgiveness, consolation and love.
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