We already know something about the character, whose name is Severine. She is married to a rich, bland, young businessman (Jean Sorel). The marriage is comfortable but uneventful. An older friend (the saturnine Michel Piccoli) makes a bold attempt to seduce her, but she does not respond. “What interests me about you is your virtue,” he says. Perhaps that is why she is not interested: She desires not a man who thinks she is virtuous, but one who thinks she is not.
