(wr. 1953, prod. 1967).
Merciless drama of greed and power continuing the history of Simon Hartford, his wife Sara, and his mother Deborah. The three protagonists are locked in a life-and-death struggle for dominance, each at the mercy of drives and appetites seemingly beyond his control. When Henry Hartford dies, leaving his great business complex near bankruptcy, the once-idealistic Simon, whose four years of managing a modest textile mill have turned him into a shrewd businessman, absorbs the company and moves his family into the Hartford mansion where Deborah has been living in a twilight world somewhere between reality and sensuous dreams. The intimate contact precipitates a desperate battle for the domination of Simon, the roles of wife and mother, husband and son shifting and blending as the sides form and re-form in complex alliances over a period of ten years. Only Sara emerges strong and unbroken. Simon realises too late that in his ruthless climb to power and wealth he has been advancing toward the destruction of himself and those around him.