Die Fächermalerin (1913)

James Woodley is happily married and has a pretty daughter named Kitty. Money is the one thing he cannot manage: his passion for gambling has first left him broke and then driven him into the clutches of a foreign power, for which he now works as a spy. He is promptly caught and sentenced to five years in prison. His wife and daughter pledge to the convict that they, too, will henceforth renounce all the pleasures of life and share his hardship of abstinence. Kitty leaves town with her ailing mother and settles elsewhere. From then on, she earns her living painting fans. Before long, the pretty artist attracts the attention of wealthy Fred Beverley, a true man of the world. He lives directly across the way and watches Kitty with the longing of a devoted admirer. Kitty feels bound by the promise she made to her imprisoned father and refuses Fred’s proposal of marriage. Fred can tell that he is not entirely indifferent to her: Kitty has painted a fan bearing portraits of them both. After three and a half years, Woodley is released from prison early. By now, his ailing wife has died, and Kitty still refuses to give her happiness a chance, even though she and Fred love each other. When father and daughter meet again, they fall sobbing into each other’s arms. Kitty does not want Fred to learn about her father’s past, so she persuades James to leave town with her at once. James, however, still wants to say goodbye to his wife and therefore visits her grave. While Kitty leaves him alone for this private moment, she wavers between her duty to her father and her love for her suitor. She seeks a way out of this dilemma in a silent prayer. Meanwhile, James waits in vain for his daughter at their agreed meeting place, a lake. When he cannot find her there, he wanders through the darkened city in search of her. The “Brothers of Mercy” comfort him and take him in for the night. As he lies down, he writes a few lines to his daughter, wishing her every happiness in the future. Kitty, meanwhile, desperately searches for her father by the lake. Some time later, there is great commotion at that same lake, within sight of Woodley’s lodging: several people have gathered around an unresponsive body and are trying to help. Woodley sees the commotion from a distance and hurries over, too. He has to watch as the strangers tend to his daughter, who has apparently been pulled from the water. Horrified, he takes the unresponsive girl, on whom attempts at resuscitation have already been made, and carries her to the house of the Brothers of Mercy. There, Kitty regains consciousness, and at last the tragic story turns into a happy ending after all.