Copenhagen, 1925, the studio of American painter Greta Waud, anxious to put the finishing touches to her latest portrait. But her diva subject has cancelled yet another sitting - how is Greta ever going to get it done? A sudden glint in her eye, and she calls to her husband Elinar. And so, late on an April afternoon, in a hush of breath and a whisper of white silk, beautiful but tremulous, the Danish girl is born. With her comes a terrible confusion of tortured feelings, of guilty longings and searing fears - and the most ecstatic passion, the most tender love either has ever known.