André Darel has taken part in the Hermosa Competition at the School of Fine Arts, and is waiting impatiently for the results. […] In a great uproar, they announce that he is the lucky winner, and that he will be awarded the substantial prize money. Several days later, his exuberant friends carry him triumphantly to the station platform, and after a loud and hearty goodbye, the young painter takes a seat on the express train to Italy, which will take him full speed ahead towards its beauties. […] On a terrace nearby, he finally glimpses a young girl wearing the local dress, entirely intent upon picking oranges. […] André Darel has fallen madly in love with the young girl from Sorrento. Twenty years old and alone in the world, in town they call her Graziella the Gypsy. […] The two love one another, and taken by the enchantment of their first love, they go to daydream atop the cliff. There, on the trunk of a tree, Graziella carves their intertwined initials with the tip of her knife. […] One day, during an outing on a steamboat, André Darel sees and then meets an elegant lady passenger, from Paris like him, who is vacationing on the coast. […] Graziella is quick to realize that her love is in danger. Little by little, Darel begins neglecting her, and with indifference, grows away from her. […] The female stranger has just passed by, and the Gypsy sees the man she loves following the woman without even turning his head. […] Enraged, Graziella runs to the tree where she had once carved the letters of their names; Gathering her courage, she extracts her sharp knife, driving it into the soft bark. Graziella strikes the tree repeatedly, furiously, as if she were shredding her own heart. She wants to kill the memory of her love, before she dies. Suddenly, she raises her arm in a great tragic gesture, with one last downward stroke, she wants to hit and pierce her splendid, pain-racked body. But her tightened fist opens slowly, the shiny blade falls into the grass, and the Gypsy sinks to the ground in a convulsive heap, quivering with sobs.


Brochure from Société des Etablissements Gaumont