: A famous racer falls in love with a terminally ill girl. Their short-lived happiness ends in the death of a rider in one of the rally. After a few weeks, the girl dies of tuberculosis.
The famous race car driver Clerfe went to the Montane alpine sanatorium for tuberculosis patients to visit his friend and former partner Holman. On a winding mountain road he met a team of horses with a sleigh. The horses got scared and stood on their hind legs, turning the sled across the road, but Klerfe grabbed them in time under the bridle. A tall man with a cold, arrogant face ruled the sled. Behind him sat a beautiful, young woman with a tanned face and very bright transparent eyes. The man at first glance caused Clerfe acute dislikes.
Holman spent almost a year in this sanatorium, and was very homesick for his profession. To support his friend, Clerfe stayed for several days, settling in a local hotel. He learned from Holman that the man he met on the road was a rich descendant of Russian white emigrants Boris Volkov, who had been treated for tuberculosis in the Alps. He rented a small house near the sanatorium. A woman, twenty-four, Liliane Dunkirk, was his lover and was treated with Holman.
That evening, the best friend Lilian died of tuberculosis, and the girl thought about her future. At Montana, she spent four post-war years. Before that, she survived the war, and did not know at all how people live in peacetime. She was seriously ill and could spend her whole life in this comfortable prison. Boris tried to console her, but Lillian wanted to live. She was annoyed by his watchful care.
That same evening, Lilian slipped out of the sanatorium and spent the evening with Clerfe at the Palace Bar. They spent several evenings together. Lilian seemed to Clerfe special, completely unlike his former mistress Lydia Morelli, who owned all the female tricks. One evening, Lilian noticed the director of the sanatorium, and the next day she read her a notation about the regimen and health. In response, she stated that she was leaving the sanatorium and asked Clerfe to take her to Paris. Boris could not dissuade her from this rash act.
Uncle Lilian lived in Paris, who paid for her treatment with money left over from her parents who died during the war. The girl decided to go straight to him. On the way to Paris, Liliane felt that the “image of the world that had frozen in her suddenly began to thaw, moved in and spoke” with her. He did not know what would happen to her next, but she lived. The journey lasted two days. They spent their first night in a small hotel near a picturesque lake. Clerfe was also a man without a future, existing from one race to another. It was with this that he attracted Lilian - she also had no future.
Arriving in Paris, Lillian rented a room in the small Bisson hotel on the Grand Augustin promenade. Having laid out things, she went to Uncle Gaston to collect her money. She had no reason to save, and she decided to buy her outfits. Uncle, a very mean man, was outraged by such wastefulness. The niece did not inform him of her fatal illness, and he set out to profitably marry Lilian so as not to spend his own money on her.
After some time, Clerfe for two weeks left for Rome to sign a contract for participation in the next auto racing. Sometimes he remembered Lilian “with hitherto unknown tenderness”, however, meeting with Lydia Morelli, he realized that Lilian was not a couple to him: “she needs a man who can give her a lot of time.” Returning to Paris, Clerfe took his mistress with him. Liliane, meanwhile, ordered a whole wardrobe in the most expensive fashion house in Paris.The fact that it was not necessary to save and think about the future now seemed to her an advantage.
After meeting Lillian again, Clerfe was amazed at how she had changed. She "as if just stepped over the mystical edge of childhood", turning into a charming woman. Now Clerfe did not understand why he was so late in Rome, and why he took his mistress with him. Remembering Liliane in Rome, he exaggerated her provincialism, afraid to fall in love and lose himself. In Paris, he started dating a girl again. Once they ran into Lydia Morelli in a restaurant, she was accompanied by a wealthy gentleman. Lilian did not become jealous - she did not have time for this. Clerfe was hurt, he felt that the girl was slipping away from him. In order not to lose Lilian, he confessed his love to her - now he needed only her. The girl was silent - she did not want to complicate her short life with serious relationships, she just wanted to live.
Uncle Gaston arranged a dinner, which was attended by several single and wealthy men. The oldest and richest was Viscount de Pestre. Without hesitation, he offered Lilian to become his containment and settle in an apartment on Place Vendome. Lilian reacted to the “grooms show” with “murderous irony.” She was indifferent to everything that these rich considered important.
Lilian and Clerfe continued to meet. He showed her the best restaurants and the most terrible cabarets in Paris. Lilian was delighted with everything, in this she was like a child. After a while, the girl rented a room at the Ritz Hotel, where Klerfe also lived. He told her that during the war the Germans lived in this hotel, and those who served them. Brother Clerfe lived there, while he himself rotted in a prison camp.
Soon they went to Sicily, where the Targa Florio races were held. He settled Lilian with a friend who owns a fleet of fishing boats and a villa on the seashore. Clerfe's choice was not accidental: the dreamy and fat rich Levalli was not Don Juan. Lillian did not see Clerfe for days, but the wind constantly brought the roar of motors to her, and she felt that he was always there.
Lilian watched the races from the rostrum. “She came into contact with death for too long and too close,” therefore “this game with fire seemed obscene to her,” and at the same time she found something from children's games in the races. Clerfe injured his shoulder, but he had to finish the race. Now Lillian almost hated him for falling in love too much. By the end of the race, she knew that she would leave him.
Clerfe suggested that Lilian live in Palermo until his shoulder heals, and then slowly move across Europe after the spring. Lilian refused - "she had a completely different attitude to time than people who had to live for many years to come." She wanted to be alone and promised Clerfe to wait for him in Paris. Arriving in Rome, Lillian suddenly decided to go to Venice. The all-pervasive dampness of this city provoked an intensification of the disease. Lilian started bleeding. She lay in bed for a week without telling Clerfe. Lillian did not want him to see her sick.
Not finding Lillian either in Paris or in the alpine sanatorium, "Clerfe began to think that she had abandoned him." He tried to forget Lilian and find solace in past entertainments, but at the same time it seemed to him "that he was immersed in something sticky, like glue." Throwing these attempts, Clerfe fell into apathy. Having lost Lilian, "he has lost something in himself." At this time, he finally broke up with Lydia Morelli. The former lover realized that Clerfe was "ripe for marriage." He did not even realize that Liliane returned to Paris and settled at the Bisson Hotel again, as if she had returned to the old harbor after a severe storm. Now Lilian “knew that there was no escape for her.” Immediately after returning, she met with Uncle Gaston, who rebuked her for being motivated and offered to settle with him. Lilian never told him about the disease.
Clerfe saw her in the hotel window, accidentally passing by.Lilian hid an exacerbation of tuberculosis from him, saying that she simply wanted to live in Venice and caught a cold. Clerfe did not believe her. Afraid that she would disappear again, he proposed to her. The company with which Clerfe signed a contract, invited him to engage in the sale of cars in the county of Toulouse. Lilian did not refuse him, but she felt that Clerfe had changed - he had a future, while she did not have it at all. She asked to wait until next year, knowing that by then she would be gone.
That evening, Clerfe brought Lillian to the hotel early. He became caring, making sure that the girl did not catch a cold, which made her very angry. Clerfe soon left for the thousand-mile race in Brescia. This time, Lilian did not go with him. She watched the races on the radio. And these races in Brescia ended and began. This seemed to Lilian as meaningless as running in a circle: at an incredible speed to break out of Brescia in order to return there in a few hours. Lillian thought that life was like a race from Brescia to Brescia. Only in a sanatorium, everything is not so: there people fight for every breath. Remembering the sanatorium, she decided to call Holman. He said that Boris Volkov is no longer coming. Holman met him a few weeks ago - he walked with his shepherd. Apparently, Boris was doing well.
Immediately after the race, Clerfe took Lilian to the Riviera, where he had a small abandoned house. Clerfe planned to restore the house for a fee from the following races and live in it after the wedding with Lilian. He did not understand that Lilian did not have time to build family happiness. If she thought about the future, she would remain in the sanatorium, day after day extending her life. "The only thing Lillian was afraid of was to be captured by the routine," therefore Clerfe's concern, his questions about well-being, terribly disappointed and annoyed her.
That evening they went to the casino. There, from an acquaintance, Lilian learned that Boris Volkov had been here once. He came before the war with one of the most beautiful women in Europe and broke a bank by playing roulette. In addition, it turned out that Volkov participated in auto racing as an amateur. Lilian was surprised - she did not know Boris like that. Secretly jealous of Volkov, Clerfe tried to repeat his achievement and lost a large sum. He regretted losing money, something he had never done before. Lillian did not want to live in a prison created by Clerfe's love. She had one means - to escape.
Racing in Monte Carlo, the biggest competition of the year, was approaching. Clerfe disappeared again in training. Now Lillian imagined love to be an endlessly long corridor. She had only a few months left to live, and she did not want to go down this corridor. Deciding to leave, Lilian felt “a little sharp happiness” and long-lost tenderness for Clerfe.
The race track passed right through the city streets and was full of sharp turns. Lilian sat on the podium, watching how cars beat circle after circle. On the fortieth circle, she decided to leave. Lilian had already managed to buy a ticket for Tyurich. The train left the day after tomorrow, just when Clerfe was supposed to fly to Rome. Clerfe walked second. Suddenly, the leading car was across the road and filled the highway with oil. Unable to go round the puddle, Clerfe hesitated, and then the car, following from behind, crushed his car. Clerfe crushed his chest. Lillian heard about it, already going down from the stands. She rushed to the hospital. Clerfe did not live to see the operation. He died without regaining consciousness.
The next day, Clerfe's sister, a dry and very practical lady, arrived in Monte Carlo. She did not communicate with her brother, who hated her. She arrived, learning about the death of Clerfe and smelling money. It soon turned out that Clerfe was bequeathed to Lillian a house on the Riviera. The sister tried to force the girl to sign the refusal of the will, but she kicked the vixen out of her room.
A day later, Lilian was leaving. All this time the girl was in prostration. It seemed unfair to her that Clerfe died before her.Lillian had a strange feeling, as if she had taken someone else's place. Gaining courage, she called Boris. An unfamiliar female voice said that he was not. Lilian decided that he too had died.
Boris found a girl at the station. He heard about the death of Clerfe and immediately went for Lillian. Now she understood that there were no places and things, because of which it was worth rushing life. Boris has long known this. He also ran away from the disease, and also returned. Lillian was received at Montana. On the mountain road leading to the sanatorium, they met Holman. He recovered and was taken to Clerfe's place.
Lilian died of bleeding six weeks after arriving at the sanatorium. Boris looked at her beautiful, calm face and thought, "that she was happy, how much a person can be happy at all."
