Summary

On the return voyage to France, Wilhelm Pabst and his wife, Trude, receive two telegrams in their cabin while their son Jakob sleeps. The first announces that a French producer has withdrawn and their planned film will not be financed, and Trude’s tears shock Pabst, who insists other projects in France will replace it. The second telegram is from Pabst’s mother in Austria urging him to come quickly, and the message makes Trude fear that a coming war will trap them in Europe.

In Paris, the narration follows Ilse Hochfeld to Alain’s shabby bar, where German speaking exiles gather for drink, gossip, and argument. They speak of friends scattered across Europe, of the struggle for visas and transit papers, and of the humiliations of living in a language they do not master. Maria Cornetti boasts that she is giving German...