Jacqueline Langeais

Jacqueline withdraws from Parisian society after the affair that destroyed Olivier's marriage and life, rejecting the same women who do by stealth what she did openly. Her grief hardens into mute self-contempt and an anxious, indulgent love for her son Georges, whom she cannot discipline because she fears her own authority. She matters because her weakness and remorse shadow the Jeannin household, shaping Georges's upbringing and keeping Olivier's wound alive in the next generation.