The Art of Seduction (12 page)

female, but seemed to be at

In 1882, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was wandering
once both and neither.
around Italy alone. In Genoa he received a letter from his friend Paul Rée, —OVID,
METAMORPHOSES,
a Prussian philosopher whom he admired, recounting his discussions with a TRANSLATED BY MARY M. INNES

remarkable young Russian woman, Lou von Salomé, in Rome. Salomé was
46
•
The Art of Seduction

Dandyism is not even, as
there on holiday with her mother; Rée had managed to accompany her on
many unthinking people
long walks through the city, unchaperoned, and they had had many conver
seem to suppose, an
sations. Her ideas on God and Christianity were quite similar to Nietz
immoderate interest in
personal appearance and

sche's, and when Rée had told her that the famous philosopher was a friend
material elegance. For the
of his, she had insisted that he invite Nietzsche to join them. In subsequent
true dandy these things are
letters Ree described how mysteriously captivating Salomé was, and how
only a symbol oj the

aristocratic superiority of his
anxious she was to meet Nietzsche. The philosopher soon went to Rome.
personality.
. . . •
What,

When Nietzsche finally met Salomé, he was overwhelmed. She had the

then, is this ruling passion
most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, and during their first long talk those
that has turned into a creed

and created its own skilled

eyes lit up so intensely that he could not help feeling there was something
tyrants? What is this
erotic about her excitement. Yet he was also confused: Salomé kept her dis
unwritten constitution that
tance, and did not respond to his compliments. What a devilish young
has created so haughty a
woman. A few days later she read him a poem of hers, and he cried; her
caste? It is, above all, a

burning need to acquire
ideas about life were so like his own. Deciding to seize the moment, Nietz
originality, within the
sche proposed marriage. (He did not know that Ree had done so as well.)
apparent bounds of

Salomé declined. She was interested in philosophy, life, adventure, not mar
convention. It is a sort of
cult of oneself, which can
riage. Undaunted, Nietzsche continued to court her. On an excursion to
dispense even with what are
Lake Orta with Rée, Salomé, and her mother, he managed to get the girl
commonly called illusions. It
alone, accompanying her on a walk up Monte Sacro while the others stayed
is the delight in causing

astonishment, and the
behind. Apparently the views and Nietzsche's words had the proper pas
proud satisfaction of
sionate effect; in a later letter to her, he described this walk as "the most
never oneself being
beautiful dream of my life." Now he was a man possessed: all he could
astonished. . . .
think about was marrying Salomé and having her all to himself.

—CHARLES BAUDELAIRE,
THE

A few months later Salomé visited Nietzsche in Germany. They took

DANDY,
QUOTED IN
VICE: AN

ANTHOLOGY,
EDITED BY

long walks together, and stayed up all night discussing philosophy. She mirR I C H A R D DAVENPORT-HINES

rored his deepest thoughts, anticipated his ideas about religion. Yet when he again proposed marriage, she scolded him as conventional: it was Nietzsche, after all, who had developed a philosophical defense of the superman,
In the midst of this display
the man above everyday morality, yet Salomé was by nature far less conven
of statesmanship,
tional than he was. Her firm, uncompromising manner only deepened the
eloquence, cleverness, and

exalted ambition,
spell she cast over him, as did her hint of cruelty When she finally left him,
Alcibiades lived a life of
making it clear that she had no intention of marrying him, Nietzsche was
prodigious luxury,
devastated. As an antidote to his pain, he wrote
Thus Spake Zarathustra,
a
drunkenness, debauchery,

and insolence. He was
book full of sublimated eroticism and deeply inspired by his talks with her.
effeminate in his dress and

From then on Salomé was known throughout Europe as the woman who

would walk through the
had broken Nietzsche's heart.

market-place trailing his

Salomé moved to Berlin. Soon the city's greatest intellectuals were
long purple robes, and he

spent extravagantly. He
falling under the spell of her independence and free spirit. The playwrights
had the decks of his
Gerhart Hauptmann and Franz Wedekind became infatuated with her; in
triremes cut away to allow

1897, the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke fell in love with her. By
him to sleep more

comfortably, and his
that time her reputation was widely known, and she was a published novel
bedding was slung on cords,
ist. This certainly played a part in seducing Rilke, but he was also attracted
rather than spread on the
by a kind of masculine energy he found in her that he had never seen in a
hard planks. He had a

golden shield made for
woman. Rilke was then twenty-two, Salomé thirty-six. He wrote her love
him, which was
letters and poems, followed her everywhere, and began an affair with her
emblazoned not with any
that was to last several years. She corrected his poetry, imposed discipline
The Dandy
•
41

on his overly romantic verse, inspired ideas for new poems. But she was put
ancestral device, but with

off by his childish dependence on her, his weakness. Unable to stand weak
the figure of Eros armed
with a thunderbolt. The

ness of any kind, she eventually left him. Consumed by her memory, Rilke
leading men of Athens

long continued to pursue her. In 1926, lying on his deathbed, he begged
watched all this with

his doctors, "Ask Lou what is wrong with me. She is the only one who
disgust and indignation

knows."

and they were deeply

disturbed by his

One man wrote of Salomé, "There was something terrifying about her
contemptuous and lawless
embrace. Looking at you with her radiant blue eyes, she would say, 'The
behaviour, which seemed to

reception of the semen is for me the height of ecstasy.' And she had an in
them monstrous and
suggested the habits of a

satiable appetite for it. She was completely amoral . . . a vampire." The
tyrant. The people's feelings

Swedish psychotherapist Poul Bjerre, one of her later conquests, wrote, "I
towards him have been very

think Nietzsche was right when he said that Lou was a thoroughly evil
aptly expressed by
Aristophanes in the line:

woman. Evil however in the Goethean sense: evil that produces good. . . .

"They long for him, they

She may have destroyed lives and marriages but her presence was exciting."
hate him, they cannot do
without him. . . ." • The

fact was that his voluntary

The two emotions that almost every male felt in the presence of Lou
donations, the public shows

Andreas-Salomé were confusion and excitement—the two prerequisite

he supported, his unrivalled

feelings for any successful seduction. People were intoxicated by her strange
munificence to the state, the

mix of the masculine and the feminine; she was beautiful, with a radiant
fame of his ancestry, the
power of his oratory and

smile and a graceful, flirtatious manner, but her independence and her in-
his physical strength and
tensely analytical nature made her seem oddly male. This ambiguity was
beauty . . . all combined to

expressed in her eyes, which were both coquettish and probing. It was con
make the Athenians forgive
him everything else, and

fusion that kept men interested and curious: no other woman was like this.
they were constantly finding

They wanted to know more. The excitement stemmed from her ability to
euphemisms for his lapses

stir up repressed desires. She was a complete nonconformist, and to be in-
and putting them down to
youthful high spirits

volved with her was to break all kinds of taboos. Her masculinity made the
and honourable ambition.

relationship seem vaguely homosexual; her slightly cruel, slightly domi-—PLUTARCH,"THE LIFE OF

neering streak could stir up masochistic yearnings, as it did in Nietzsche. ALCIBIADES,"
THE RISE AND

Salomé radiated a forbidden sexuality. Her powerful effect on men—the
FALL OF ATHENS: NINE GREEK

lifelong infatuations, the suicides (there were several), the periods of intense
LIVES,
TRANSLATED BY IAN

SCOTT-KILVERT

creativity, the descriptions of her as a vampire or a devil—attest to the obscure depths of the psyche that she was able to reach and disturb. The Masculine Dandy succeeds by reversing the normal pattern of

male superiority in matters of love and seduction. A man's apparent inde-
Further light
—
a whole
flood of it
—i
s thrown

pendence, his capacity for detachment, often seems to give him the upper
upon this attraction of

hand in the dynamic between men and women. A purely feminine woman

the male in petticoats for

will arouse desire, but is always vulnerable to the man's capricious loss of
the female, in the diary
of the A b b é de Choisy, one

interest; a purely masculine woman, on the other hand, will not arouse that
of the most brilliant men-

interest at all. Follow the path of the Masculine Dandy, however, and you
women of history, of whom

neutralize all a man's powers. Never give completely of yourself; while you
we shall hear a great deal

are passionate and sexual, always retain an air of independence and self
more later. The abbé, a
churchman of Paris, was a

possession. You might move on to the next man, or so he will think. You
constant masquerader in

have other, more important matters to concern yourself with, such as your
female attire. He lived in
work. Men do not know how to fight women who use their own weapons

the days of Louis XIV, and

was a great friend of Louis'

against them; they are intrigued, aroused, and disarmed. Few men can resist
brother, also addicted to

the taboo pleasures offered up to them by the Masculine Dandy.

women's clothes. A young

48
•
The Art of Seduction

girl, Mademoiselle

The seduction emanating from a person of uncertain or dis-

Charlotte, thrown much

simulated sex is powerful.

into his company, fell

—COLETTE

desperately in love with the

abbé, and when the affair

had progressed to a

liaison, the abbé asked her

Keys to the Character

how she came to be won . . .

• "
I stood in no need of

caution as I should have

with a man. I saw nothing

but a beautiful woman,
Many of us today imagine that sexual freedom has progressed in recent years—that everything has changed, for better or worse. This is

mostly an illusion; a reading of history reveals periods of licentiousness
and why should I be

forbidden to love you?

(imperial Rome, late-seventeenth-century England, the "floating world" of
What advantages a

eighteenth-century Japan) far in excess of what we are currently experi
woman's dress gives you!

encing. Gender roles are certainly changing, but they have changed before.
The heart of a man is

there, and that makes a

Society is in a state of constant flux, but there is something that does not
great impression upon us,

change: the vast majority of people conform to whatever is normal for the
and on the other hand, all

time. They play the role allotted to them. Conformity is a constant because
the charms of the fair sex

fascinate us, and prevent us

humans are social creatures who are always imitating one another. At cer
from taking precautions. "
tain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious,

— C . J . B U L L I E T ,

but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or re
VENUS CASTINA
bellious about it.

We should never complain about most people's slavish conformity,

however, for it offers untold possibilities of power and seduction to those
Beau Brummell was
who are up for a few risks. Dandies have existed in all ages and cultures (Al
regarded as unbalanced in
cibiades in ancient Greece, Korechika in late-tenth-century Japan), and
his passion for daily
wherever they have gone they have thrived on the conformist role playing
ablutions. His ritualistic

morning toilet took upward

of others. The Dandy displays a true and radical difference from other peo
of five hours, one hour
ple, a difference of appearance and manner. Since most of us are secretly
spent inching himself into