Reaching the shores of South
Europe he sat down to write his autobiography--the great literary
success of its year. This book was followed by other books written with
the declared purpose of elevating humanity. In these works he preached
generally the cult of the woman. For his own part he practised it under
the rites of special devotion to the transcendental merits of a certain
Madame de S--, a lady of advanced views, no longer very young, once
upon a time the intriguing wife of a now dead and forgotten diplomat.
Her loud pretensions to be one of the leaders of modern thought and of
modern sentiment, she sheltered (like Voltaire and Mme. de Stael) on the
republican territory of Geneva. Driving through the streets in her big
landau she exhibited to the indifference of the natives and the stares
of the tourists a long-waisted, youthful figure of hieratic stiffness,
with a pair of big gleaming eyes, rolling restlessly behind a short veil
of black lace, which, coming down no further than her vividly red lips,
resembled a mask. Usually the "heroic fugitive" (this name was bestowed
upon him in a review of the English edition of his book)--the "heroic
fugitive" accompanied her, sitting, portentously bearded and darkly
bespectacled, not by her side, but opposite her, with his back to the
horses.
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