Summer Interlude

During a troubled dress rehearsal for Swan Lake, Marie receives an unexpected visitor: Henrik's diary. The diary is delivered at the theatre, and its presence unsettles her carefully maintained detachment. The event plants the seed for a journey into the past that will shape her present emotions.

Marie takes a boat across to the island where she first met Henrik, hoping to escape the pressures of the stage and find his memory. She revisits their carefree days and lets the diary illuminate the past she seldom acknowledges. The journey stirs forgotten feelings and questions about her current emotional distance.

Three days before the end of that summer, Henrik is due to return to college while Marie heads back to the theatre. Henrik dives from a cliff and is gravely injured, dying from his injuries shortly after. The tragedy marks the turning point that will haunt Marie for years.

Uncle Erland, a friend of Marie's mother, takes her into winter seclusion and helps her build an emotional wall to numb the pain of loss. He becomes a mentor and then an unsettling presence, cultivating his attraction to Marie. He is later revealed to have sent Henrik's diary to the theatre.

While visiting Erland's house, Marie discovers that he was the diary's distributor, keeping it since the hospital day when Henrik died. She feels betrayed and accuses him of exploiting her grief for his own ends. The revelation reframes her understanding of the past and her relationship with Erland.

After the evening dress rehearsal, the ballet master acknowledges Marie's single‑minded devotion, recognizing both her talent and her emotional barrier. She then confides in her current lover, the journalist David, weighing whether to share the diary's truth. She resolves to let David read Henrik's diary and then open up about her past.

David reads Henrik's diary, gaining insight into Henrik's fate and the reasons behind Marie's guarded nature. He begins to understand the depth of her past and the complexity of her grief. The moment shifts their relationship as he confronts the information with sensitivity.

Marie seizes the opportunity to speak openly with David about Henrik, Erland, and the pain she has carried. She explains why she has guarded her heart and how the diary's truths affect her dance and her future. David listens with care, offering renewed patience and support.

After David leaves, Marie removes her makeup and looks at her reflection, and a flicker of her lost youth and innocence returns. She smiles and even makes faces in the mirror, reconnecting with a part of herself she had buried. The small moment signals a change in her interior state.

The first performance of Swan Lake proceeds with mounting intensity as Marie channels her renewed emotion. In the wings she encounters a more understanding David, whose support contrasts with her earlier isolation. The audience's applause and her own sense of breaking through heighten the moment.

Marie and David share a kiss in the wings just before she returns to finish the ballet. His empathy and readiness to accept her past give her the courage to perform with openness. She returns to the stage with a brighter, more alive spirit.