Seductress (54 page)

111
She rechristened Miriam . . . :
Stern,
Purple Passion,
23.

111
Her “beauty,” wrote Frank . . . :
Quoted ibid., 38.

112
The Leslies opened . . . :
Quoted ibid., 73.

112
She wore the . . . :
Quoted ibid., 74.

112
He died in . . . :
Quoted ibid., 98.

113
The astonished business . . . :
Quoted ibid., 105, 122, and 106.

113
The “belle,” she wrote . . . :
Leslie,
Are Men Gay Deceivers?,
31 and 231.

113
But she refused . . . :
Quoted in Stern,
Purple Passion,
119.

113
She was fifty-five, . . . :
Leslie,
Are Men Gay Deceivers?,
178, and Key,
Love and Ethics,
81.

113
“He was of no use” . . . :
Quoted in Stern,
Purple Passion,
160 and 162.

113
With a Scarlett O’Hara . . . :
Leslie,
Are Men Gay Deceivers?,
111, and Stern,
Purple Passion,
108.

114
To better reflect . . . :
Quoted in Stern,
Purple Passion,
109.

114
The same “habit . . .”:
Leslie,
A Social Mirage
(London and New York: F. Tennyson Neely, 1899), 306.

114
Go for the clout . . . :
Ibid., 17 and 87.

114
“The fascinating woman” . . . :
Leslie,
Are Men Gay Deceivers?,
111 and 232.

114
Frank Leslie’s carpets . . . :
Quoted in Stern,
Purple Passion,
125.

115
We’re witnessing, reports . . . :
Ben Brantley, “Strutting Past the Ingenues: Women of Experience Grab the British Spotlight,”
New York Times,
August 16, 2000, E4.

115
Surrealist artist Beatrice Wood . . . :
Quoted in Roberta Wood, “Beatrice Wood, 105, Potter and Mama of Dada, Is Dead,”
New York Times,
March 14, 1998, A15.

115
“Honey,” said Lena Horne . . . :
Quoted in Joan Rivers,
Don’t Count the Candles: Just Keep the Flame Alive
(New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 113.

115
Because of poor . . . :
Rita M. Ransohoff, Ph.D.,
Venus After Forty
(Far Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1987), xv.

115
A woman’s chances . . . :
Cited in Betty Friedan,
The Fountain of Age
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 261, and Sara Rimer, “For Aged Dating Game Is Numbers Game,”
New York Times,
December 23, 1998, A1.

115
The rest, though . . . :
Colette Dowling,
Red Hot Mamas
(New York: Bantam, 1996), 19. Many wise elders counsel women to hang it up. Internalizing the patriarchal battleax stereotypes, they adjure seniors to celebrate cronehood and retreat from the field. Betty Friedan recommends handling the sexual “blackout” through communes and “enlightened” polygamy, and Germaine Greer and Carolyn Heilbrun advise flat-out resignation.

Let nature take its course, they argue, be done with diets, cosmetics, and coquetry, and “leave romance to the young.” Heilbrun charges, “Sex after sixty cannot be the object of any undertaking.” Friedan,
Fountain of Age,
258. Carolyn Heilbrun,
The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty
(New York: Ballantine, 1997), 112 and 113. Greer celebrates the “emancipation from the duty of sexual attraction” and the consolations of proud singlehood in
The Change: Women Aging and Menopause
(New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991), 41 and passim.

116
Jean-Paul Sartre called . . . :
Sartre,
Being and Nothingness,
455.

117
“May the gods,” . . . :
Ovid,
Art of Love,
Book 1, VIII, line 113, 29.

118
Above the entrance . . . :
Quoted in Roger S. and Laura H. Loomis, eds.,
Medieval Romances
(New York: Random House, 1957), 387, and Barbara G. Walker,
The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
(San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1983), 674.

120
“Men hate intellectual . . .”:
Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Princess,” Part II, line 442, quoted in Stevenson, ed.,
Home Book of Quotations,
2193.

120
For that reason . . . :
Such a goddess was the divine sage as well as the sexual energy of the universe. Primitive peoples envisioned her as the moon, which contained her wise blood, and in fact, “moon” and “mind” share the same root, the Indo-European
manas.
Walker,
Women’s Encyclopedia,
670. “In ancient societies,” notes scholar Miriam Dexter, “the dumb but beautiful image was not an ideal.” Miriam Robbins Dexter,
Whence the Goddess
(New York: Teachers College, 1990), 22.

121
Being smarter than . . . :
Ellen Winner, quoted in Howard Gardner,
Extraordinary Minds
(New York: Basic Books, 1997), 41.

121
Veronica Franco, a brilliant . . . :
Masson,
Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance,
155.

121
Her forte was . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
17. Aphrodite’s attendant was Peitho (persuasion), and the Scandinavian sex goddess Freya’s other name was Saga or Sayer. Walker,
Women’s Encyclopedia,
325.

121
“Rhetoric in all . . .”:
Leonardo Bruni, quoted in Margaret L. King, “Book-lined Cells: Women and Humanism in the Early Italian Renaissance,”
Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past,
ed. Patricia Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1984), 77.

121
Those who rebelled . . . :
During the Renaissance, Italy produced a galaxy of vocal female intellectuals—translators, orators, and writers—but they sacrificed sex and personal fulfillment. Of the ten major humanist scholars of the quattrocento, three remained single and all but one withdrew in silence after marriage. The rule was
Maritar o monacar
(Marry or take the veil). King, “Book-lined Cells,” 131.

121
These renegade birds . . . :
Margaret F. Rosenthal,
The Honest Courtesan
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 73.

122
Determined to “educate . . .”:
Ibid., 87.

122
A maestra of . . . :
Masson,
Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance,
164.

122
She bragged that . . . :
Ibid., 157 and 158.

123
An “expensive mouthful” . . . :
Ibid.
,
153.

123
She’s the one in charge . . . :
Quoted in Rosenthal,
Honest Courtesan,
227.

123
I’d not give . . . :
Quoted in Lawner,
Lives of the Courtesans,
56.

124
In such a utopia . . . :
Rosenthal,
Honest Courtesan,
253.

124
“Of all the world’s . . .” :
Quoted ibid., 133.

124
Her devotees called . . . :
Quoted ibid., 95 and Baring and Cashford,
Myth of the Goddess,
265.

125
The imperious Louis . . . :
Quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
246.

125
Like Inanna’s alter ego . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
15.

125
The tastemaker of . . . :
Voltaire quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
301.

125
The most distinguished men . . . :
Ninon quoted ibid., 74.

125
They also bowed . . . :
Ibid., 49.

125
Such a power . . . :
See Hufton,
Prospect Before Her,
3-62 and passim.

125
When the curé . . . :
Ninon quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
26.

126
Rather than the traditional . . . :
Quoted in Emile Magne,
Ninon de Lenclos,
trans. Gertrude Scott Stevenson (New York: Henry Holt, 1948), 12.

126
Her most besotted . . . :
Segrais quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
57.

126
Unlike the priggish . . . :
Ninon quoted ibid., 38. Soren Kierkegaard expressed a similar sentiment: “A man who could not seduce men cannot save them either.” Quoted in W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger,
The Viking Book of Aphorisms
(New York: Viking, 1962), 249.

126
Her “enchanting” conversation . . . :
Quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
269.

126
Toute le monde . . . :
Ninon quoted ibid., 246.

127
Your conversation is . . . :
Chapelle quoted ibid., 134.

127
A live wire . . . :
Ninon quoted ibid., 118.

127
No less uninhibited . . . :
Saint-Évremond quoted ibid., 119.

127
She reportedly brought . . . :
Ibid., 74-75, and Ninon quoted ibid., 174.

127
“Love with passion . . .”:
Ninon quoted ibid., 174.

127
She was, penultimately . . . :
Tallement quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
39.

128
The man was . . . :
Quoted ibid., 136.

128
Physically magnetized by . . . :
Quoted ibid., 140-41.

129
She reserved a . . . :
Saint-Évremond, quoted ibid., 202.

129
Shunned all her life . . . :
Ibid., 255.

129
They were tyrannized . . . :
Quoted in Magne,
Ninon de Lenclos,
234.

129
“A woman who . . .”:
Ninon quoted in Cohen,
Mademoiselle Libertine,
174.

129
One suggested that . . . :
Quoted ibid., 295.

130
“Her mind was . . .”:
Quoted in Rudolph Binion,
Frau Lou: Nietzsche’s Wayward Disciple
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 32.

130
But it was a mind . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
18. Today it’s called personal intelligence, a heightened understanding of others and oneself. See Gardner,
Extraordinary Minds,
36, and
Frames of Minds: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
(New York: Basic Books, 1983), 237-76.

130
One of our deepest . . . :
For a sampling of views on this, see Person,
Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters,
58-62, 82, and passim; Alice Miller,
The Drama of the Gifted Child,
trans. Ruth Ward (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 15; Ortega y Gasset,
On Love,
36-39 and 136-7; Robert Solomon,
About Love
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 189-99; and Maurois, “The Art of Loving,” 22-30. Paul Valéry says it succinctly: “Love is directed toward what lies hidden in its object.”
Lovers’ Quotation Book,
ed. Helen Handley (New York: Penguin, 1987), 25.

130
Lou Andreas-Salomé, the . . . :
Lisa Appiganesi and John Forrester,
Freud’s Women
(New York: Basic Books, 1992), 241.

130
The god-men of . . . :
Quoted in Angela Livingstone,
Salomé: Her Life and Work
(Mount Kisco, N.Y.: MoyerBell, 1984), 169.

130
Her titanic ego . . . :
Stanley A. Leavy, intro.,
The Freud Journal of Lou Andreas-Salomé,
trans. Stanley A. Leavy (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1965), 25.

131
When she found school . . . :
Quoted in H. F. Peters,
My Sister, My Spouse: A Biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé
(New York: Norton, 1962), 31.

131
After her studies . . . :
Quoted ibid., 66.

132
From the moment . . . :
Anaïs Nin, intro., ibid., 8.

132
Lou’s clairvoyant grasp . . . :
Quoted in Appignanesi and Forrester,
Freud’s Women,
247.

132
With the fury . . . :
Quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
132.

132
He called her . . . :
Quoted ibid., 153, and quoted in Livingstone,
Salomé,
40.

132
One regular said . . . :
Quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
154.

132
Although she invited . . . :
Quoted in Livingstone,
Salomé,
61.

133
They don’t “need . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 137.

133
During her mid-thirties . . . :
Fenitschka
quoted ibid., 208.

133
Any number of . . . :
Quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
196.

133
He changed his name . . . :
Quoted in Livingstone,
Salomé
104.

133
Their life together . . . :
Ibid., 110.

133
For Rainer she . . . :
Quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
215; Livingstone,
Salomé,
104; Binion,
Frau Lou,
215; and Livingstone,
Salomé,
101.

134
Despite Zemek’s popularity . . . :
Peters,
My Sister,
267.

134
She not only . . . :
Mary-Kay Wilmers, intro., Lou Andreas-Salomé,
The Freud Journal,
trans. Stanley A. Leavy (London: Quartet Books, 1964), xi.

134
Victor Tausk, a tall . . . :
Quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
279.