Ambassador Toulon notes Rene's sudden personality change by stating: "you've become this new, aggressive, overconfident thing". Song begins to write letters to Rene which he does not answer. At Frau Bauden's party, Rene is accosted by angry embassy employees whose expenses he has refused. When Rene kisses Song, she looks offended and asks him to leave. Song next entertains him in her parlor, a potentially scandalous action in a country "rooted 2,000 years in the past". Although he and Song only talk, he lies to his wife about his whereabouts. He tells Jeanne that the Chinese can't stand Madame Butterfly because "the white man gets the girl." Three weeks later, Rene musters the courage to visit the Opera again where he meets Song Liling backstage. Afterwards, he tells his wife Jeanne that Song Liling has opened his eyes to the beauty in the tragic tale, but Jeanne pours scorn on his romanticized western ideal of the submissive oriental woman. Mild-mannered Rene Gallimard, an accountant at the French embassy, watches captivated as Opera diva Song Liling sings a selection from 'Madame Butterfly'.
The synopsis below may give away important plot points. Aspects of their relationship will ultimately lead to his downfall, those aspects which he either does not initially see or refuses to see in only wanting to see that ideal he has in his mind. In their relationship, René gets caught up in the western male/demure East Asian female ideal as depicted in "Madama Butterfly", the death scene aria which she sang in the first performance of hers he attended. Prior to his promotion, he, already married, begins an illicit affair with Song Liling, a starring member of the Beijing Opera. Being a stickler for doing things by the books, at least as it comes to his own responsibilities, places him at odds with some of his colleagues, but leads to him being promoted to Vice-Consul, especially important during this uncertain geopolitical time with the French having lost the war in Indochina and another war possibly breaking out in Vietnam. René Gallimard is a mid-level bureaucrat working in the French Embassy in Beijing.
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazilġ964.
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