As a few days passed, anyone who would look up the story of The Painted Veil, at least the movie adaptation (to which Leo was alluding to with its far more pleasant endingâŠ), was a story of misplaced love that was eventually found and then lost.
Kitty, a young woman of society, was poorly courted by a young doctor (Walter) who basically married him to escape the influence of her mother. Moving from London to Shanghai, she embarked on an affair with Charles Townsend as she had no love for Walter.Â
However the heart broken Walter found out, and gave her a choice- stay with the married Charlie or follow Walter into the cholera plagued river country as he worked for a cure to avoid ruin.Â
She chose Walter out of self preservation.Â
However, the more time they spent together alone, the more Walterâs love for Kitty was restored and the more Kitty grew to like and eventually love Walter too.Â
But it wasnât to last. As Kitty discovered she was pregnant, Walter contracted cholera and consequently was lost to the illness- leaving Kitty a widow with child to return to London alone.
Years later, in London, she and her son Walter are seen at a florist re-enacting a scene between her and her husband that had happened previously, though instead of Kitty rejecting flowers as an unnecessary nuisance that will just die anyway, she asks her son what he thinks of them to which he says that theyâre quite nice- and now she too sees the beauty in something that doesnât last forever, agreeing herself as a contrast to her former opinion.
On a chance, they see Charlie, he propositioning Kitty- but she rebuffs him completely. When asked by Walter who Charlie was, she simply says âNo one important darling.âÂ
The soundtrack itself that went along with all of this was both delicate and clumsy, grandiose and subtle all at once. There was hope, discovery and there was loss- the main theme being a delicate piece called The River Waltz.
On the discovery of all of this, it would be Leo who would make the phone call.