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Carnet de Bal
At Christine's home
Christine is coming home from the cemetery after her husband's death. Her friend reads the letter her husband was writing when he died. '"I'm happy and I think that my life..." To die on that word', he says. Christine doesn't know what to do with her life, she has no friends, no children, nobody in the world. He advises her to travel. She'd need a goal, she says. He looks at the dance card. She remembers her first ball when she was 16, twenty years ago. How wonderful it was! She talks about the chandeliers, white gowns and crinolines. He laughs at her. 'Your memory is playing tricks on you, it's making it better than it actually was.' She remembers the Valse grise and he tries to play it on the piano. She thinks of her former beaux, especially about G�rard, the one she truly loved.
She's leaving on a trip, she'll go see what has become of her former boyfriends. There's an address missing, they couldn't find G�rard's.
Georges
The maid tells Christine that George has died and implies that Madame Audi� is mad. Mme Audi� (Fran�oise Rosay) greets Christine. She thinks she's Christine's mother and shows her old photographs. 'But that's me 20 years ago, madame!' 'Isn't it?' Mme Audi� says her son is sad, moody, since Christine has gotten engaged to another young man. She asks Christine's mom to stay for dinner. She shows her George's bedroom where she kept everything exactly as it was 20 years ago. 'You're not opposed to their marriage, are you? he's got a great future ahead of him. You should scold Christine, she's cruel, she doesn't know the harm she's done. You can't console a child with a broken heart. That day, he left as usual, he kissed me. But where did he get that gun?' Madame Audi� wants to show her his diary and asks Rose for the key. The doorbell rings and she thinks George is coming. But it was only kids playing a prank. When she sees the death announcements, Madame Audi� says it isn't true, he didn't kill himself. And that's why she never sent those.
She tells Christine to leave, she's the one preventing him from coming back. She imagines the day he'll finally come, how he'll remove his coat, say 'good morning', and kiss her as he always did.
Pierre
Jo/Pierre (Jouvet) is reading the criminal code.
They're planning a robbery at the Baron's house, while the baron will be distracted in the nightclub by some female. 'I have people here who will give him satisfaction', says Jo.
The late baroness's jewel case is hidden in the baron's foot-warmer. Pierre tells them to steal the foot-warmer.
'Stealing that won't get you much time. You can always plead you didn't know what was inside.' They plan to use some letters from the jewel case for blackmail.
-That's 1 to 5 years... You'll call it a negotiation. I know all about this. I pleaded once in a case like this, before I was barred from practicing.
Someone comes in. Young Simonet won't pay the money he owes. Jo sends one of his thugs to collect.
An accomplice worries about the sentence he's risking.
-Article 181 of the criminal code: life in jail with hard labor. Life in jail would be nothing without hard labor.
He gives him a drink to encourage him.
-We can still limit the risks. Do you have weapons? That's an aggravating circumstance, leave the artillery here. There'll be nobody home; you don't intend to use the artwork for shooting practice, do you?
He tells them only one of them should enter the house while the others wait in the car. Article 383, sentence is steeper if the crime is committed by more than one person. They're outraged.
-It's not fair!
-I've condemned the code a long time ago.
To avoid breaking in (another aggravating circumstance), he'll try to get the baron's own key. Last question: Nightime (aggravating circumstance again).
-What is night?
-It's when it's dark?
-No. Legally speaking, night is the interval between sunset and sunrise. Tomorrow the sun will rise at 3:54; at 3:55 you'll go in. And if the worst comes to the worst, you'll only get 18 months, and perhaps even parole.
-That's not a profession!
-Yes. Done like this, it's a profession. To your success...
In the nightclub, Jo greets a party at a table. 'This is Jo', the man tells his friends. 'If you tell him I sent you, he'll reduce his prices.' He asks Jo about the brunette who's dancing. 'She's Miss Barbara. If you tell her I sent you, she'll reduce her prices...'
Jo throws a woman out. She took a client's money and didn't go home with him. He wants people to deserve what they earn and earn what they get. The baron walks in. He asks for a young blonde he could trust with his silverware.
Jo is unhappy with what the band's been playing. He wants them to wake people up. He tells the waiter to stop dreaming and take people's orders. 'You're not here to do crossword puzzles.'
Christine asks the waiter about Pierre. When she recognizes Pierre in Jo, she gives the waiter a message for him, the first lines of a poem by Verlaine: 'In the great park, lonely and cold, two shadows just walked by...'
Jo introduces a blonde to the baron. 'Show your teeth to the gentleman. That's very young, baron, and it doesn't know a thing about silverware.' The waiter delivers the message.
-What business is this of yours?
But Jo recognizes Christine. He questions her: 'What are you doing here. Are you alone? Weren't you married? He left you? You're free then.'
She tells him she's a widow. 'Same thing... Why did you come here? You're broke? You need me?'
She misunderstands and says 'Maybe'.
-Don't worry, I'll take care of everything. I'll find you someone, it'll only take a minute. It's nice thinking of your old friends when you're in trouble.
-But Pierre!
-Oh no, there's no Pierre anymore. Everybody calls me Jo, you call me Jo. And I'll call you Cricri, it sounds younger. You still look good. When you come in here you have to leave your wrinkles at home, otherwise the clients get depressed.
He leaves to get the baron's key. He calls out when he sees Christine is leaving.
-Cricri! You're leaving? I wasn't nice to you?
Christine says she wanted to see Pierre, but it's Jo who met Cricri.
-I only wanted to help you out.
-I only wanted to see Pierre, my dear Jo. Not ask anything of him.
-You came here only to see me? Because of way back then? You're still interested in the guy I was?
-He was a gentleman.
-That's a kind thing to say... So you still remember me. I don't.
Later, sitting at the bar.
-You wanted to be a lawyer.
-I was one for 2 years. I still am in my free time. I give... legal advice. I had some troubles. I lived alone for 3 years... without parole. I opened this nightclub when I got out... of my troubles.
-It must be fascinating work.
-I reign on waiters, low-class artists, easy music and women who are easier than the music.
-Why are you always looking at your watch? Am I boring you?
-No. I'm thinking about him, Jo. Let him worry. He's not interesting. To think I held you in my arms! You didn't have very sound judgment then. We used to take walks at sunset. I'd kiss your neck, trembling like an idiot. It was charming...
-You used to call me Clara d'Ellebeuse because of a poem by Francis Jammes.
-And you called me 'Pierre l'ind�cis', because I was so shy. Ah, how pure we'd remain if we could always remember our youth. With life, we forget, and we take strange paths, Clara d'Ellebeuse.
-You were a strange boy.
-Yeah. But it was in another world.
Jo's accomplice wants to talk to him.
-I'm not here. Leave me alone. There'll be time enough to be a bastard later.
-I get it. You're drunk. I'll come back later.
-Nevermind him. He just bothered me while I was trying to remember the poem. That's funny, it must have been 10 years since I said that word: a poem.
'In the great park, lonely and cold,
Two shadows just walked by.
Their eyes are dead, their lips are limp,
And one can barely make out their words.
In the great park, lonely and cold,
Two ghosts talked about the past.
-Do you still recall our long-lost love?
-Why would you want me to remember?
-Do you still tremble at my name?
Do you still see me in your dreams? -No.
-Ah! The fine days of unspeakable happiness
When my mouth... would press your mouth. -That's possible.
-The sky was so blue, and hope so great.
-Hope has fled, defeated, toward the black skies.
And thus they walked among the wild oaths...'
A policeman comes to arrest him. 'Pierre Verdier?'
-See? You're the only two people who know my real name. Don't worry Christine, they're not arresting Pierre, only Jo. I'm leaving Pierre to you... Let the party continue...
'And thus they walked among the wild oaths,
And only the wind could make out their words.'
Alain
Father Dominique (Harry Baur) is rehearsing a choir. A woman brings her son to get him to join the choir. Father Dominique questions him, the boy doesn't know much, but he does know music and latin, so he's accepted. The boys break a lamp, they won't say who did it, so the rehearsal resumes.
When Christine meets him, she is surprised to see what he's become and wonders how to address him. 'Father.'
She says she wanted to see Alain, so they talk about him at the third person. She tells him how alone she's been, even when her husband was alive. He talks about his pupils and how some of them turned out. He was a great musician once, so she asks why he turned to religion.
He talks of his deceptions. Once he wrote a sonata for a woman, and he played his sonata at a concert, he played for her alone. But she wasn't listening, she was laughing with another man. Christine realizes she was that young woman. He had lost his muse, he says, so he dedicated his life to his son, all he had left in the world. But his son died soon afterwards. So he turned to religion.
Christine leaves. One of the kids confesses to breaking the lamp. 'Well done... I mean, don't do it again!'
Eric
Eric (Pierre-Richard Willm) is now a mountain guide. He left Paris and everything. He has no regrets. The past doesn't exist for him. He never found the right woman, so he lives here in the mountain. She keeps asking him if she was pretty back then, and he keeps changing the conversation. He tells her he likes her better the way she is now. She's more human. She's changed. It's time to go down, or else they'll have to spend the night at the refuge. She'd like that, so they stay there. She tells him of her journey, what she found. He asks her if she'll continue. She says, 'It depends.' He asks her to stay with him. 'You don't love me, she says. You love the mountain.'
'The mountain got angry this morning when I met you, she was jealous.' He says he'll leave with her. A bell rings, a call for help. There were victims from the avalanche. He must go, they need him. He tells her to take her things, they're going down.
Later, when he comes back, she's already gone.
Fran�ois
Christine wants to see the mayor in a small town. They tell her the mayor is getting married today, to his cook...
Fran�ois Patusset (Raimu) is looking for his collar button. He's annoyed that there are so many flowers there ('is this a funeral or a wedding?'), that Cecile (the cook he's marrying) always keeps the blinds down on sunny days, that she's carrying her broom on her wedding day ('do you think you're desirable with that?' 'It serves you right for marrying your maid.') He finds his button, they argue about the blinds, they make up. He shouts, but he doesn't mean anything by it, he says. She admits that the thing with the blinds is just to have something to talk about.
Christine comes in. Fran�ois thinks she came for his wedding. As they remember what they said to each other long ago, someone is listening at the window. They compare how everything turned out in their lives. There's a picture of his adopted son on the wall. He's not coming to the wedding. 'He's in Paris, he can't come. He's a good boy...'
The wedding is taking place in the town hall. The mayor must take matters in his own hands, and even make the speech himself (about the marriage of different social classes).
At dinner, he thinks Christine must find him vulgar. He talks about the time he tried to drown himself for her. It's a nice memory, he says. He then goes to talk with his son who's lurking around.
He had thrown his son out because he robbed the neighbors, but now he forgives him. The son soon asks for money. 'So that's why you came.' The son tells him he knows Christine is his mistress and he raises his price to keep quiet. Patusset tells him to leave, but the son also robbed some of the houses during the wedding. Now he offers to give the loot back in exchange for a lot of money. Enraged, Patusset beats up his son and gets comforted by his wife.
Thierry
Gaby wakes up Thierry (Pierre Blanchar); the woman is back. She tells him to ask her 500 francs. He says he's sick of this life she's making him live. He's just got a contract, he'll work on a ship. He'll be rid of her. 'You could do 10 times as much here. You're afraid of the cops', she says. He laughs at her and she tears up his contract. When Christine comes in, Gaby starts crying. He shuts her up and apologizes to Christine, but he doesn't recognize her. He thinks she came for a consultation. Then, he thinks she may be a former patient who wants to make trouble. Or perhaps a rich woman he treated in Sa�gon. She speaks of their youth and then he recognizes her, 'you haven't changed a bit!'. He talks about how he lost his eye.
-How's life been for you?
-We all have our sorrows but I can't complain, Christine says.
-Of course, when you compare yourself to me... That's how low I've come. But I'm determined to get myself out of this...
-Can I help?
But he doesn't want money. She offers him a job. He can find one himself, he says. What he needs is a friend, to lose that sense of shame, and get back his confidence and his courage. Perhaps they could write to each other, read the same books... He asks her to stay for lunch and tells Gaby she's a friend, not a client.
-Excuse the service, I don't have a maid, says Gaby. He's always complaining. He wants to work on a ship, but I worry about his health. He has these fits.
Thierry is getting increasingly nervous, until he has a full-blown fit. 'Imagine that happening on your ship?', says Gaby. She sends Christine away. Thierry is desperate to get her address, but Gaby throws Christine out and tells her she never wants to see her there again.
Fabien
Christine is back in her hometown. She looks at postcards and is amazed at how much the place has changed. She asks about Fabien and the lady at the newstand tells her he's her hairdresser.
Fabien (Fernandel) is doing a card trick, but Christine knows it well. He's amazed, he invented that trick. He eventually remembers her name. He introduces his daughter, whose name is Christine also. How lucky they never got married, he says. His poor wife, what would have become of her? He asks her if she remembers the famous ball. They talk and laugh about all the others. She asks about G�rard, but he says he doesn't remember him. He says the balls are still being given regularly, he invites her to the next one.
At the ball
'You see, it's exactly the same as it was back then.' She asks to have the orchestra play 'Valse grise'. She talks to a young girl for whom it's the first ball. They dance, but she wants to leave.
Back home, she says she's very disappointed by what she found. Her friend tells her she's freed from her past now, she can move forward. He says he found G�rard's address. She doesn't want to see him, she wants her memory of him intact. But ironically, he lives just across the lake. When she gets there, it's too late. G�rard is dead. She meets his son who's now alone in the world... She'll take care of him.
She's taking him to his first ball, he's excited about it. 'A first ball is almost as important as your first cigarette, but no more than that', she says.
