This is a most tragic love story, perhaps more so than Romeo and Juliet, because this is not a conventional love tragedy between a man and a woman. It's a love tragedy between two men . While one clung ardently to his love, because it is a symbolic light to fight his way out of poverty and darkness, the other attempted to spurn away his lover in shame and fear. Frightened of being branded a homosexual, he forced himself to love a woman, to cut away that part of him which made he feel guilt and dirty, and in the process, destroy a part of his self that is true and beautiful. Society, conventionality and self-abasement! Here's a tale of sorrow, lost, lust, money, wine shops, Paris 1950, attic rooms, drunken morning, Seine, cold boulevards, murder and death.