I have never spoken to her in my life and have seen her only twice, I believe.  I wrote to her though, that I admit.  She or rather the image of her has come into my life, into that part of it where art and letters reign undisputed like a sort of religion of beauty to which I have been faithful through all the vicissitudes of my existence.  Yes, I did write to her and I have been preoccupied with her for a long time.  It arose from a picture, from two pictures and also from a phrase pronounced by a man, who in the science of life and in the perception of aesthetic truth had no equal in the world of culture.  He said that there was something in her of the women of all time.  I suppose he meant the inheritance of all the gifts that make up an irresistible fascination—­a great personality.  Such women are not born often.  Most of them lack opportunities.  They never develop.  They end obscurely.  Here and there one survives to make her mark even in history. . . .  And even that is not a very enviable fate.  They are at another pole from the so-called dangerous women who are merely coquettes.  A coquette has got to work for her success.  The others have nothing to do but simply exist.  You perceive the view I take of the difference?”

I perceived the view.  I said to myself that nothing in the world could be more aristocratic.  This was the slave-owning woman who had never worked, even if she had been reduced to live by her wits.  She was a wonderful old woman.  She made me dumb.  She held me fascinated by the well-bred attitude, something sublimely aloof in her air of wisdom.

I just simply let myself go admiring her as though I had been a mere slave of aesthetics:  the perfect grace, the amazing poise of that venerable head, the assured as if royal—­yes, royal even flow of the voice. . . .  But what was it she was talking about now?  These were no longer considerations about fatal women.  She was talking about her son again.  My interest turned into mere bitterness of contemptuous attention.  For I couldn’t withhold it though I tried to let the stuff go by.  Educated in the most aristocratic college in Paris . . . at eighteen . . . call of duty . . . with General Lee to the very last cruel minute . . . after that catastrophe end of the world—­return to France—­to old friendships, infinite kindness—­but a life hollow, without occupation. . .  Then 1870—­and chivalrous response to adopted country’s call and again emptiness, the chafing of a proud spirit without aim and handicapped not exactly by poverty but by lack of fortune.  And she, the mother, having to look on at this wasting of a most accomplished man, of a most chivalrous nature that practically had no future before it.

“You understand me well, Monsieur George.  A nature like this!  It is the most refined cruelty of fate to look at.  I don’t know whether I suffered more in times of war or in times of peace.  You understand?”