Seductress (55 page)

134
She’d bewitched him, . . . :
Quoted ibid., 270.

134
“The reception of . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 263.

134
Expanding on her . . . :
Quoted in Livingstone,
Salomé,
144.

134
Through intercourse, she wrote . . . :
Under Hendrik Gillot Lou studied extensively “rites and rituals” of primitive societies. Peters,
My Sister,
53.

135
Some “geniuses” of . . . :
Andreas-Salomé,
Freud Journal,
149, and quoted in Livingstone,
Salomé,
144.

135
“Yes, I
am
. . .”:
Quoted ibid., 213.

135
She didn’t exaggerate . . . :
Andreas-Salomé,
Freud Journal,
118.

135
Others—Freud, Rilke, . . . :
Andreas-Salomé,
Freud Journal,
26 and quoted in Peters,
My Sister,
13.

135
At the same time . . . :
Freud quoted in Appignanesi and Forrester,
Freud’s Women,
241; Lesley Chamberlain, “Rilke’s Muse, and Freud’s?,”
Times Literary Supplement
(October 20, 2000), 36; and Livingstone,
Salomé,
166.

135
“The Fairy godmother . . .”:
Quoted in Appignanesi and Forrester,
Freud’s Women,
267.

135
But this gift . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
16.

135
Inanna’s deputy, the sexy . . . :
Quoted in Frymer-Kensky,
Wake of the Goddess,
40.

135
Although usually considered . . . :
For a detailed discussion of this, see Walker,
The Crone.
The Goddess, she writes, “was regarded as the sole origin of orderly, logical thought. Out of her intellectual gifts to women arose such disciplines as mathematics (originally meaning ‘mother-wisdom’), calendars (originally ‘lunar’ or ‘menstrual’), [and] systems of measurement,” 7.

136
“A genius in . . .”:
Samuel Edwards,
The Divine Mistress
(New York: David McKay, 1970), 241.

136
“The wench,” said . . . :
Quoted ibid., 9.

136
“The most brilliant . . .” :
Quoted ibid., 232 and Nancy Mitford,
Voltaire in Love
(New York: E.P. Dutton, 1957), 14.

136
“No great lord . . .”:
Ibid., 11.

136
They took bets . . . :
Quoted ibid., 221.

137
With one, she feigned . . . :
Quoted ibid., 24.

137
This national hero . . . :
Ibid., 31.

137
“Fascinated by her . . .”:
Ibid., 41.

138
The high-tension sexual . . . :
See Ira O. Wade,
Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet: An Essay on the Intellectual Activity at Cirey
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941) for a discussion of their mutual influence on each other and his lengthy analysis of Emilie’s probable authorship of
Examen de la Genèse,
45-89.

138
The academic establishment . . . :
Quoted in Edwards,
Divine Mistress,
181 and book jacket.

139
They should, she advised . . . :
Quoted ibid., 92 and 224.

139
She oversaw his diet . . . :
Ibid., 186.

139
But he was content . . . :
Quoted ibid., 129.

139
“I have lost . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 268.

139
They sniggered at her . . . :
Quoted ibid., 157.

139
“The light of . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 1 and 2.

140
She was also known . . . :
Quoted in Carl Rollyson,
Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave: The Story of Martha Gellhorn
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 25 and 41.

140
Later, at Bryn Mawr . . . :
Ibid., 32.

140
She dangled a . . . :
Quoted ibid., 29.

140
Uninhibited, sensuous, fun-loving . . . :
Quoted ibid., 24.

141
He shared Martha’s . . . :
Martha Gellhorn, quoted in Rick Lyman, “Martha Gellhorn, Daring Writer, Dies at 89,”
New York Times,
February 17, 1998, B 11.

141
Their affair lasted . . . :
Quoted in
Caroline Moorehead, Gelhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life
(New York: Henry Holt, 2003), 69.

141
Her record of . . . :
Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
82.

141
She wore a black . . . :
Quoted ibid., 90.

141
Invading the no-woman’s-zone . . . :
Ibid., 108.

141
They used each . . . :
See Martha’s “discerning and engaging” portrait of Hemingway on their trip to China together and his play
The Fifth Column,
in which he portrays her as Dorothy, a woman with her flair and the “loveliest damn body in the world.” But there the similarity ended. Unlike her passive, somnambulistic stage persona, Martha was a tiger. Quoted in Bernice Kert,
The Hemingway Women
(New York: Norton, 1983), 355, and quoted in Jeffrey Meyers,
Hemingway: A Biography
(New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 317.

141
“He would be . . .” :
Quoted in Meyers,
Hemingway,
350.

142
Her powerful pieces . . . :
Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
108.

142
During the postwar . . . :
Quoted in Lyman, “Martha Gellhorn,” B 11.

142
A “female flying . . .”:
Quoted in Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
247.

143
Traditional “soft and . . .”:
Martha Gellhorn, “A Promising Career,”
The Novellas of Martha Gellhorn
(New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 331.

143
These swanky sexpots . . . :
Gellhorn, “Till Death Do Us Part,”
Novellas,
303, and
His Own Man
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), 67 and 73.

143
Increasingly anti-American . . . :
Quoted in Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
318.

143
Hemingway’s cronies thought . . . :
Quoted ibid., 182. The three-volume
Notable American Women
devotes a page to her mother, the St. Louis suffragist and civic leader, but omits Martha. Ironically, she was an ardent feminist, referring to American women of the fifties as “Arab females.” Quoted in Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
272.

143
More “ambitious than . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 236.

143
With the goddess’s . . . :
Quoted in Lyman, “Martha Gellhorn,” B 11.

143
As the deity’s . . . :
Frymer-Kensky,
Wake of the Goddess,
48. Hemingway griped that he felt like one more addition to her “collection” of men. Quoted in Rollyson,
Martha Gellhorn,
202.

143
She once said . . . :
Quoted in Lyman, “Martha Gellhorn,” B 11.

144
Despite male claims . . . :
Neumann,
Great Mother,
296.

144
Hence the sexual . . . :
Guy Sirello, “Beauty and Sex,”
The Philosophy of Sex,
ed. Alan Soble (Savage, Md.: Rowan & Littlefield, 1991), 21.

144
As a result, academics . . . :
Madeleine M. Henry,
Prisoner of History: Aspasia of Miletus and Her Biographical Tradition
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 17.

144
At the very least . . . :
Paul Werner,
Life in Greece in Ancient Times,
trans. David Macrae (Geneva: Minerva, 1978-81), 53.

145
Added to these . . . :
Henry,
Prisoner of History,
17.

145
Plutarch says that . . . :
Quoted in C. Hayward,
Dictionary of Courtesans
(New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1962), 32.

145
Attracted, according to report . . . :
Plutarch, “Pericles,”
The Rise and Fall of Athens,
trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert (New York: Penguin, 1960), 190.

145
He became so . . . :
Henry,
Prisoner of History,
13.

145
Without his encouragement . . . :
Ibid., 3.

145
Socrates, one of . . . :
Quoted in Werner,
Life in Greece,
32.

145
A canny performance . . . :
See Henry,
Prisoner of History,
38, for a discussion of the subtleties and complexities of this performance.

146
The seducer, she . . . :
Ibid., 47.

146
This was volatile . . . :
Lugo Basserman,
The Oldest Profession,
trans. James Cleugh (New York: Dorset Press, 1967), 15.

146
Playwrights assailed her . . . :
Aristophanes quoted in Henry,
Prisoner of History,
28.

146
PC scholars condemn . . . :
Ibid., 6.

146
Judy Chicago accordingly . . . :
Judy Chicago,
The Dinner Party
(Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1979), 122.

146
And she comes . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
26 and 15.

146
In early nineteenth-century . . . :
J. Christopher Herold,
Mistress to an Age
(New York: Time-Life Books, 1958), 469.

146
For most of . . . :
Quoted ibid., 558. Wayne Andrews,
Germaine: A Portrait of Madame de Staël
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1964), 209.

147
This opera queen . . . :
See de Staël’s essay on Aspasia in the
Biographie universelle,
1811-57, discussed in Gretchen Besser,
Germaine de Staël Revisited
(New York: Twayne, 1994), 113-14.

147
“A dictionary of . . .”:
B. d’Andlau,
Madame de Staël,
trans. Georges Solovieff (Coppet: n.p., 1975), 32.

147
She molded public . . . :
Besser,
Germaine de Staël,
144.

147
Heavyweights from Goethe . . . :
Quoted in Vivian Folkenflik,
An Extraordinary Woman: Selected Writings of Germaine de Staël
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 5.

147
She suddenly metamorphosed, . . . :
Quoted in Dan Hofstadter,
The Love Affair as a Work of Art
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 23.

147
Her huge black . . . :
Quoted in d’Andlau,
Germaine de Staël,
50, 25, and 61.

148
“Of all the men . . .”:
Quoted in Herold,
Mistress to an Age,
56.

148
“No one could . . .”:
Ibid., 64.

148
“The most brilliant . . .”:
Ibid., 85.

148
She flattered, teased . . . :
Quoted in Andrews,
Germaine,
150.

148
When he fled . . . :
Quoted ibid., 104.

148
During the Terror . . . :
Herold,
Germaine,
344.

149
By the time Germaine . . . :
Hofstadter,
Love Affair,
8.

149
“Her mind dazzled . . .”:
D’Andlau,
Germaine de Staël,
39, and quoted in Hofstadter,
Love Affair,
23-24.

149
Still, over the ensuing . . . :
Quoted in Andrews,
Germaine,
169.

149
He moaned, “No one . . .”:
Quoted ibid., 101.

149
During their roller-coaster . . . :
Quoted in d’Andlau,
Germaine de Staël,
50.

149
Criticism should be . . . :
Quoted in Vivian Folkenflik,
Extraordinary Woman,
13, and Herold,
Mistress to an Age,
243.

150
As a philosopher . . . :
Herold,
Mistress to an Age,
233, and see Germaine’s self-assessments in
Corinne,
Folkenflik,
Extraordinary Woman,
254, and her Cleopatra biography, Besser,
Germaine de Staël,
114-15.

150
Included this time . . . :
Herold,
Mistress to an Age,
504, and quoted in Andrews,
Germaine,
190.

150
Her death stunned . . . :
Quoted in Herold,
Mistress to an Age,
580.

150
Her male detractors . . . :
Quoted ibid., 223, and Besser,
Germaine de Staël,
139.

150
“Monsieur,” she told . . . :
Quoted in Andrews,
Germaine,
131.

151
In Corinne’s climactic . . . :
Walker,
Women’s Encyclopedia,
201.

151
These truths, like . . . :
Wolkstein and Kramer,
Inanna,
16.

151
But Germaine emerged . . . :
According to tradition, Germaine never achieved true happiness. But scholar Vivian Folkenflik vigorously refutes this, citing Germaine’s own life assessment in her final book,
Ten Years of Exile.
“Mme. de Staël gives us enough in passing to let us know that she has made her life in exile a full one: the pleasure of knowing someone who will lend you his house when you are exiled from Paris, the delights of intimate conversation with long-term friends and complicated flirtatious games no one else can play; the enterprising determination of a woman in her midforties to investigate her property in America; the enjoyment of playing and hearing music, and the genuine curiosity about Indian rarities, encountered by chance. If she takes some satisfaction in this, we may be able to share it with her. Necessarily on the periphery, she had succeeded in making herself a life elsewhere,” 36.