The Last Mistress

Ryno appears genuinely ready to leave his libertine past behind. Having grown weary of the destructive cycle with Vellini after their daughter's death and years of fraught passion, he sees marriage to the innocent Hermangarde as an opportunity for respectability and a fresh start. The Marquise de Flers permits the match partly because she believes Ryno can provide financial stability, and Ryno himself seems to genuinely intend fidelity, at least initially.

The backstory reveals that after their daughter's death, Ryno and Vellini acknowledged mutual loathing, and Ryno's appetite for the relationship began to wane.

They met a decade before the main narrative in Baden, where Ryno was living a carefree aristocratic life. Vellini was married to Sir Reginald, an elderly baronet. Ryno was instantly attracted to her, but she initially rejected him. A ride in the Bois de Boulogne led to a failed kiss attempt, which provoked Sir Reginald to challenge Ryno to a duel. During the duel, Ryno attempted a chivalrous ploy to end it, but Reginald shot him, leaving him gravely wounded. While recovering, Vellini visited him, tended his wound, licking the blood from it, and their torrid affair began.

The initial encounter establishes the pattern of their relationship: intense physical passion mixed with danger and social transgression.

After relocating to Algeria together, Ryno and Vellini had a daughter. The child died from a scorpion sting, a tragic accident that devastated both parents. In the aftermath, they experienced profound grief and even confronted mortality together in a vivid, intense scene: they made love beside their daughter's burning pyre. This tragedy marked a turning point in their relationship, leaving them acknowledging mutual loathing even as their physical attraction persisted.

The loss of their child deepens the toxic entanglement between them, creating a bond forged in shared tragedy that proves impossible to break.

Hermangarde deliberately goes to Vellini's house one night and discovers her husband and Vellini together in an explicit scene. The traumatic revelation of this betrayal, combined with the emotional devastation of witnessing the affair firsthand, causes her to suffer a miscarriage the next morning. The loss of her child represents the complete destruction of whatever fragile hope remained in the marriage.

The affair has been openly conducted despite Hermangarde's pregnancy, and her discovery comes as the final psychological blow.

Vellini appears at the Norman coast estate where Ryno and Hermangarde have settled, pressing him to either kill or kiss her, an ominous demand that represents the inescapable pull of their decade-long entanglement. Though Ryno attempted to end the relationship, Vellini's return demonstrates that neither she nor Ryno can truly break free from their passionate bond. The affair resumes, eventually becoming open and defiant of social norms.

Even before the marriage, the Marquise hints that Ryno has had a mistress for a decade, suggesting the past cannot be so easily left behind.

The Marquise de Flers is Hermangarde's grandmother who orchestrates the marriage for practical reasons, she believes the match will profit both the impoverished Ryno and her innocent granddaughter. Despite the Comtesse d'Artelles' doubts about whether a penniless rake can truly leave his libertine past behind, the Marquise permits the union after hearing Ryno's full confession about his past. The Marquise never learns of the marriage's ultimate failure, as she dies before the complete unraveling occurs.

The Marquise's optimism about Ryno's reform proves tragically misplaced, as Vellini's shadow follows the couple to Normandy.

Ryno's struggle represents the film's central exploration of destructive passion. Their connection began with intense physical and emotional intensity, the blood-licking scene, the near-death experience, the shared grief of their daughter's death. Even when Ryno attempts to end things, Vellini's return awakens the same powerful pull. The narrative suggests their bond transcends mere desire and becomes a kind of fatal compulsion neither can escape, even when it destroys everything around them.

The story frames their relationship as an addiction that persists despite mutual acknowledgment of its toxicity.

The ending is bleak. After Hermangarde's miscarriage destroys any hope for the marriage, Ryno resumes openly visiting Vellini in Paris, displaying striking indifference to his wife. The story concludes with the death of the Marquise de Flers, who never witnessed the marriage's complete failure, bringing some relief to the Comtesse d'Artelles, who had doubted the match from the start. Ryno remains trapped in his cycle with Vellini, with no redemption or escape in sight.

The final image emphasizes the past's refusal to stay buried, as Ryno's patterns repeat without change.

Prony serves as a representative of Parisian social authority. He visits Vellini to deliver a blunt message: her long-standing affair with Ryno must end because Ryno is about to be married to Hermangarde. This scene establishes the social pressure surrounding Ryno's upcoming marriage and the city's awareness of his scandalous past. Prony also crosses paths with Ryno on his way out, setting up the confrontation that leads to Ryno's final visit to his mistress.

Prony represents the social world that Ryno is attempting to leave, but cannot fully escape.

Vellini's desires remain complex and somewhat ambiguous throughout the film. She initially spurned Ryno but became drawn into the affair after his near-death experience. She left her husband for him, causing a Parisian scandal. Even when Ryno attempts to end things, she returns and demands he either kill or kiss her, suggesting she craves intensity above all, even if that intensity is destructive. Her relationship with Ryno seems to fulfill a need for passion and meaning that transcends simple romantic desire.

Her dramatic return to the Norman estate shows she will not accept being discarded easily.