Longing

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “I told you I would help you without any obligation on your part.” He snorted. “But I suppose with your lack of faith in me, your surprise is to be expected.” She bit her lower lip and took a moment before she could reply. “I deserved that.” “Aren’t you departing today?” he asked gruffly. “Yes. Gwen and I shall be leaving in just a few hours.” “Godspeed.” He waved his hand over his shoulder in a gesture of dismissal. Charlotte’s chin lifted. His anger was her due, and she would bear it. She would pay whatever penance he required if he would find it in his heart to love her again. Taking a deep breath, she stepped closer. “Don’t you wish to say good-bye to me, Hugh?” “We’ve already done that.” “’Tis apparent you’ve said farewell, but I haven’t. Not properly.” That spun him about. He’d removed his cravat, leaving his throat bare and revealing a light dusting of golden hair in the slender opening of his shirt. His gaze raked from the top of her head to her slippered feet. She made no attempt to hide her longing or desire. He gave a bitter laugh. “Ah, I’m untrustworthy and have no self-restraint, but I can fuck well. What a relief to know I’m good for something.” Charlotte winced. “You are good for a great many things, Hugh La Coeur. And I am a thousand kinds of fool for making you doubt that.” His jaw tensed. “I’m not in the mood for your games.” She stepped close enough to smell him, a rich combination of the scent of his skin, horses, and the wild outdoors. His nostrils flared as she neared; his gaze narrowed. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered. She reached for his hand, but he backed away quickly, an action she took as a positive sign. He couldn’t be as indifferent as he appeared, or he wouldn’t fear her touch. “I didn’t believe Glenmoore. Not even for a moment. He simply provided the excuse to be a craven I was looking for.” “Get out,” he snarled. “I can’t.” She smiled sadly. “I need you, Hugh.” Shaking his head, he moved away. “No, you don’t. You can care for yourself; you don’t need anyone to rescue you. I, however, have discovered I require being needed. And for more than just my cock.” She stepped up to him and placed her hand against his back, flexing her fingers to absorb the feel of muscle and sinew beneath the billowing linen of his shirt. He tensed, and she rested her head against him, trusting him silently not to move away, for if he did she would stumble. “I do need you and want you. You’ve no notion of the torment I’ve suffered these last three nights without you. It’s not merely your body I missed. I’ve missed your voice, your laughter, your smile. I cannot go another day without those things in my life.”

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  Julienne looked at the missive in her hand and wondered the same thing. Hugh had retired to the country for an extended party with some of his friends, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his debts. As usual, he’d failed to consider notifying her until days after he’d left. Her brother didn’t mean to be hurtful. He was simply irresponsible and always leaped before looking, consistently landing in puddles of trouble. It was partly her fault, for always cleaning up after him. Hugh had never learned that every action has a consequence. She rose from behind the desk and threw the letter into the fire. “Nothing has changed. I had to marry in any case.” “Oh, Julienne . . .” Eugenia sighed. “You’ve been through so much. I cannot collect how you manage it.” “The same way you’ve managed Hugh and me. We do what we must.” Julienne turned back to her aunt and smiled. At fifty, Eugenia Whitfield was still a lovely woman. Widowed at a young age, she could easily have remarried. Instead she had taken over the care of her brother’s children when the Earl of Montrose and his wife were killed in a carriage accident. While she often wrung her hands and lamented the unruliness of her charges, Eugenia never said a word of regret about the things she’d given up. Because of this, Julienne loved her aunt more than anything. “I just assumed Hugh was drinking and gambling himself silly in that club,” Eugenia said. “I could never have imagined he would leave town at a time like this! It’s your first Season, for heaven’s sake.” She pursed her lips. “That boy needs a switch to his behind.” Julienne choked back a laugh at the picture. Aunt Eugenia had never raised a hand to either of them, although the hugs had been plentiful. Sinking into her chair, Julienne let her mind drift to Lucien Remington, a man who was free and unrestrained by the rules that smothered her. Just the thought of the scandalous rogue made her body ache with remembered passion. If she closed her eyes, she could recall his richly masculine scent and the gentleness of his touch deep inside her. The memory alone aroused her, making her nipples hard and her skin hot. If she listened to Society, she would feel some terrible regret or dismay at what she had allowed to happen, but she didn’t. Lucien had made her feel cherished, and while he’d only mentioned his physical attraction, his every touch, every kiss, had been underlain with an aching tenderness. Her entire life she’d been an object of fragile esteem, not considered a woman of passions, but just a female extension of the men in her life—first her father, then her brother, next her husband. Only Lucien had seen beyond the exterior to the woman within.

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  He was so achingly beautiful, she could hardly bear it. Thankfully he remained unaware of how he affected her. “If your carriage is repaired in time, perhaps it will be possible to set off tomorrow.” “My thoughts were similar.” He closed the book and gestured for her to come closer. The earl had been in residence for a fortnight, and so far his interest in her showed no signs of waning. He slept in her bed every night and spent every waking moment with her, maintaining his easy charm without any sign of boredom. If she moved to leave the room, he followed. If she wanted to take a nap, he went with her. For the first time in her life, the loneliness that was her constant companion was gone, replaced by the steadfast presence of the dashing Earl of Montrose. “You seem nervous,” he noted. “And this surprises you? I haven’t left the area in a very long time. My clothes are sadly out of date, and my social deportment is rusty.” Hugh chuckled, and when she came close enough, he tugged her into his lap. “No one will pay any mind to those things. Your beauty is so blinding, it outshines everything else.” “Perhaps you think so,” she muttered. “I definitely think so,” he corrected, kissing the tip of her nose. “You have nothing to fear. The company we’ll keep are infamous for their eccentricities. My sister and Remington aren’t conventional by any means, and Merrick disappeared for years. To this day no one knows where he was. That sort of behavior is odd. My arriving with a gorgeous woman on my arm is positively commonplace, regardless of her attire.” Charlotte looked away, stung by the knowledge that she was simply one of many. She’d known he would be a temporary pleasure when she met him. Why she’d allowed herself to care for him, she couldn’t say. But then, it was most likely inevitable. How could any woman deny him anything, including her heart? “I have never taken a woman to meet my sister before,” he said softly, and when she turned to look at him, it was clear he knew her thoughts. His dark eyes studied her face, a frown gathering between his brows. To divert him from his intense perusal, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close. “Thank you for helping me, Hugh. I cannot begin to tell you what it means to me.” “No more, I imagine, than what it means to me that you trust me to do so.” He tucked her against his chest and sighed. “Are you even a little excited to leave this place and mingle with the rest of the world?” “Oh, I’m very excited. This will be Gwen’s first time away from the district, and I eagerly anticipate meeting Lucien Remington. I’ve heard some—” She squealed as she was tackled to the settee.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Nobody in this world feels whole and complete. We all sense some gap in our character, something we need or want but cannot get on our own. When we fall in love, it is often with someone who seems to fill that gap. The process is usually unconscious and depends on luck: we wait for the right person to cross our path, and when we fall for them we hope they return our love. But the seducer does not leave such things to chance. Look at the people around you. Forget their social exterior, their obvious character traits; look behind all of that, focusing on the gaps, the missing pieces in their psyche. That is the raw material of any seduction. Pay close attention to their clothes, their gestures, their offhand comments, the things in their house, certain looks in their eyes; get them to talk about their past, particularly past romances. And slowly the outline of those missing pieces will come into view. Understand: people are constantly giving out signals as to what they lack. They long for completeness, whether the illusion of it or the reality, and if it has to come from another person, that person has tremendous power over them. We may call them victims of a seduction, but they are almost always willing victims. This chapter outlines the eighteen types of victims, each one of which has a dominant lack. Although your target may well reveal the qualities of more than one type, there is usually a common need that ties them together. Perhaps you see someone as both a New Prude and a Crushed Star, but what is common to both is a feeling of repression, and therefore a desire to be naughty, along with a fear of not being able or daring enough. In identifying your victim's type, be careful to not be taken in by outward appearances. Both deliberately and unconsciously, we often develop a social exterior designed specifically to disguise our weaknesses and lacks. For instance, you may think you are dealing with someone who is tough and cynical, without realizing that deep inside they have a soft sentimental core. They secretly pine for romance. And unless you identify their type and the emotions beneath their toughness, you lose the chance to truly seduce them. Most important: expunge the nasty habit of thinking that other people have the same lacks you do. You may crave comfort and security, but in giving comfort and security to someone else, on the assumption they must want them as well, you are more likely smothering and pushing them away. Never try to seduce someone who is of your own type. You will be like two puzzles missing the same parts. 149 150 • The Art of Seduction The Eighteen Types

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  To form the cast for the mannequin, Amanda lay face down in a vat of latex batter for ninety minutes, breathing through a straw. You haven’t seen her in the flesh since she left for the last trip to Paris, a few days after she did the cast. You stand in front of the window and try to remember if this was how she really looked. LES JEUX SONT FAITSYou met her in Kansas City, where you had gone to work as a reporter after college. You had lived on both coasts and abroad; the heartland was until then a large blank. You felt that some kind of truth and American virtue lurked thereabouts, and as a writer you wanted to tap into it. Amanda grew up smack in the heart of the heartland. You met her in a bar and couldn’t believe your luck. You never would have worked up the hair to hit on her, but she came right up and started talking to you. As you talked you thought: She looks like a goddamned model and she doesn’t even know it . You thought of this ingenuousness as being typical of the heartland. You pictured her backlit by a sunset, knee-deep in amber waves of grain. Her lanky, awkward grace put you in mind of a newborn foal. Her hair was the color of wheat, or so you imagined; after two months in Kansas you had yet to see any wheat. You spent most of your time at zoning-board meetings duly reporting on variances for shopping malls and perc tests for new housing developments. At night, because your apartment was too quiet, you went to bars with a book. She seemed to think you came from Manhattan. Everyone in Kansas thought you came from New York City, whether you said Massachusetts, New England, or just East Coast. She asked about Fifth Avenue, The Carlyle, Studio 54. Obviously, from her magazine reading she knew more about these places than you did. She had visions of the Northeast as a country club rolling out from the glass and steel towers of Manhattan. She asked about the Ivy League, as if it were some kind of formal organization, and later that night she introduced you to her roommate as a member of it. Within a week she moved in with you. She was working for a florist, and thought she might eventually like to attend classes at the university. Your education daunted and excited her. Her desire to educate herself was touching. She asked you for reading lists. She talked about the day your book would be published. All your plans were aimed at Gotham. She wanted to live on Central Park and you wished to join the literary life of the city. She sent away for the catalogues of universities in New York and typed the résumés which you sent out.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Chateaubriand spent much of his time with his sister Lucile, and his attachment to her was strong enough that rumors of incest made the rounds. But when he was around fifteen, a new woman named Sylphide entered his life—a woman he created in his imagination, a composite of all the heroines, goddesses, and courtesans he had read about in books. He was constantly seeing her features in his mind, and hearing her voice. Soon she was taking walks with him, carrying on conversations. He imagined her innocent and exalted, yet they would sometimes do things that were not so innocent. He carried on this relationship for two whole years, until finally he left for Paris, and replaced Sylphide with women of flesh and blood. The French public, weary after the terrors of the 1790s, greeted Chateaubriand's first books enthusiastically, sensing a new spirit in them. His novels were full of windswept castles, brooding heroes, and passionate heroines. Romanticism was in the air. Chateaubriand himself resembled the characters in his novels, and despite his rather unattractive appearance, women went wild over him—with him, they could escape their boring marriages and live out the kind of turbulent romance he wrote about. Chateaubriand's nickname was the Enchanter, and although he was married, and an ardent Catholic, the number of his affairs increased with the years. But he had a restless nature—he traveled to the Middle East, to the United States, all over Europe. He could not find what he was looking for anywhere, and not the right woman either: after the novelty of an affair wore off, he would leave. By 1807 he had had so many affairs, and still felt so unsatisfied, that he decided to retire to his country estate, called Vallée aux Loups. He filled the place with trees from all over the world, transforming the grounds into something out of one of his novels. There he began to write the memoirs that he envisioned would be his masterpiece. By 1817, however, Chateaubriand's life had fallen apart. Money problems had forced him to sell Vallée aux Loups. Almost fifty, he suddenly felt old, his inspiration dried up. That year he visited the writer Madame de Staël, who had been ill and was now close to death. He spent several days at her bedside, along with her closest friend, Juliette Récamier. Madame Ré- camier's affairs were infamous. She was married to a much older man, but they had not lived together for some time; she had broken the hearts of the most illustrious men in Europe, including Prince Metternich, the Duke of 344 • The Art of Seduction Wellington, and the writer Benjamin Constant. It had also been rumored that despite all her flirtations she was still a virgin. She was now almost forty, but she was the type of woman who seems youthful at any age.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  confessing it. Indeed he delighted in their shocked responses, and his long need to lower his sexual narrative poem, The Bride of Abydos, takes brother-sister incest as its theme. object. . . . Women Rumors began to spread of Byron's relations with Augusta, who was now belonging to the higher levels of civilization do not pregnant with his child. Polite society shunned him—but women were usually transgress the more drawn to him than before, and his books were more popular than prohibition against sexual ever. activities during the period of waiting, and thus they Annabella Milbanke, Lady Caroline Lamb's cousin, had met Byron in acquire this close association those first months of 1812 when he was the toast of London. Annabella between the forbidden and was sober and down to earth, and her interests were science and religion. the sexual. . . . • The injurious results of the But there was something about Byron that attracted her. And the feeling deprivation of sexual seemed to be returned: not only did the two become friends, to her bewil- enjoyment at the beginning derment he showed another kind of interest in her, even at one point manifest themselves in lack of full satisfaction when proposing marriage. This was in the midst of the scandal over Byron and sexual desire is later given Caroline Lamb, and Annabella did not take the proposal seriously. Over the free rein in marriage. But, next few months she followed his career from a distance, and heard the on the other hand, troubling rumors of incest. Yet in 1813, she wrote her aunt, "I consider his unrestrained sexual liberty from the beginning leads to acquaintance as so desirable that I would incur the risk of being called a no better result. It is easy Flirt for the sake of enjoying it." Reading his new poems, she wrote that his to show that the value the "description of Love almost makes me in love." She was developing an ob- mind sets on erotic needs instantly sinks as soon as session with Byron, of which word soon reached him. They renewed their satisfaction becomes readily friendship, and in 1814 he proposed again; this time she accepted. Byron obtainable. Some obstacle was a fallen angel and she would be the one to reform him. is necessary to swell the tide of the libido to its It did not turn out that way. Byron had hoped that married life would height; and at all periods of calm him down, but after the ceremony he realized it was a mistake. He history, wherever natural told Annabella, "Now you will find that you have married a devil." Within barriers in the way of satisfaction have not a few years the marriage fell apart. sufficed, mankind has

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  lover. Saltykov had entered her spirit. and ask you in truth to cat and drink with me, and to When you mirror people, you focus intense attention on them. They he my companion as long will sense the effort you are making, and will find it flattering. Obviously as I live. " • Then the old you have chosen them, separating them out from the rest. There seems to man ordered his attendants be nothing else in your life but them—their moods, their tastes, their spirit. to serve all the dishes which they had consumed The more you focus on them, the deeper the spell you produce, and the in-in fancy, and when he and toxicating effect you have on their vanity. my brother had eaten their Many of us have difficulty reconciling the person we are right now fill they repaired to the drinking chamber, where with the person we want to be. We are disappointed that we have compro-beautiful young women mised our youthful ideals, and we still imagine ourselves as that person sang and made music. The who had so much promise, but whom circumstances prevented from real-old Barmecide gave Shakashik a robe of honor izing it. When you are mirroring someone, do not stop at the person they and made him his constant have become; enter the spirit of that ideal person they wanted to be. This companion. is how the French writer Chateaubriand managed to become a great se- — " T H E TALE OF SHAKASHIK, ducer, despite his physical ugliness. When he was growing up, in the latter THE BARBER'S SIXTH BROTHER," eighteenth century, romanticism was coming into fashion, and many TALES FROM THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, TRANSLATED young women felt deeply oppressed by the lack of romance in their lives. BY N.J. DAWOOD Chateaubriand would reawaken the fantasy they had had as young girls of being swept off their feet, of fulfilling romantic ideals. This form of entering another's spirit is perhaps the most effective kind, because it makes people feel better about themselves. In your presence, they live the life of the person they had wanted to be—a great lover, a romantic hero, whatever it is. Discover those crushed ideals and mirror them, bringing them back to life by reflecting them back to your target. Few can resist such a lure. Symbol: The Hunter's Mirror. The lark is a sa- vory bird, but difficult to catch. In the field, the hunter places a mirror on a stand. The lark lands in front of the glass, steps back and forth, entranced by its own moving image and by the imitative mating dance it sees performed before its eyes. Hypnotized, the bird loses all sense of its surroundings, until the hunter's net traps it against the mirror. Enter Their Spirit • 227 Reversal This desire for a double of the other sex that resembles us absolutely while still

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The festival represented a break in a person's daily life, a radically different experience from routine. On a more intimate level, that is how you must envision your seductions. As the process advances, your targets experience a radical difference from daily life—a freedom from work or responsibility. Plunged into pleasure and play, they can act differently, can become someone else, as if they were wearing a mask. The time you spend with them is devoted to them and nothing else. Instead of the usual rotation of work and rest, you are giving them grand, dramatic moments that stand out. You bring them to places unlike the places they see in daily life— heightened, theatrical places. Physical environment strongly affects people's moods; a place dedicated to pleasure and play insinuates thoughts of pleasure and play. When your victims return to their duties and to the real world, they feel the contrast strongly and they will start to crave that other place into which you have drawn them. What you are essentially creating is festival time and place, moments when the real world stops and fantasy takes over. Our culture no longer supplies such experiences, and people yearn for them. That is why almost everyone is waiting to be seduced and why they will fall into your arms if you play this right. The following are key components to reproducing festival time and place: Create theatrical effects. Theater creates a sense of a separate, magical world. The actors' makeup, the fake but alluring sets, the slightly unreal 433 434 • Appendix A: Seductive Environment /Seductive Time costumes—these heightened visuals, along with the story of the play, create illusion. To produce this effect in real life, you must fashion your clothes, makeup, and attitude to have a playful, artificial, edge—a feeling that you have dressed for the pleasure of your audience. This is the goddesslike effect of a Marlene Dietrich, or the fascinating effect of a dandy like Beau Brummel. Your encounters with your targets should also have a sense of drama, achieved through the settings you choose and through your actions. The target should not know what will happen next. Create suspense through twists and turns that lead to the happy ending; you are performing. Whenever your targets meet you, they are returned to this vague feeling of being in a play. You both have the thrill of wearing masks, of playing a different role from the one your life has allotted you.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  At the soiree he felt totally out of his element. All of the city's great surrender, she let herself be writers and wits were there, as well as the few of the nobility who had conquered. Had she been more tender, more survived—Josephine herself was a vicomtesse, and had narrowly escaped attentive, more loving, the guillotine. The women were dazzling, some of them more beautiful perhaps Bonaparte would than the hostess, but all the men congregated around Josephine, drawn by have loved her less. her graceful presence and queenly manner. Several times she left the men —IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND, QUOTED IN THE EMPRESS behind and went to Napoleon's side; nothing could have flattered his inse- JOSEPHINE: NAPOLEON'S cure ego more than such attention. E N C H A N T R E S S , PHILIP W . He began to pay her visits. Sometimes she would ignore him, and he SERGEANT would leave in a fit of anger. Yet the next day a passionate letter would arrive from Josephine, and he would rush to see her. Soon he was spending most of his time with her. Her occasional shows of sadness, her bouts of Coquettes know how to please; not how to love, anger or of tears, only deepened his attachment. In March of 1796, Napo- which is why men love leon married Josephine. them so much. Two days after his wedding, Napoleon left to lead a campaign in northern —PIERRE MARIVAUX Italy against the Austrians. "You are the constant object of my thoughts," he wrote to his wife from abroad. "My imagination exhausts itself in guessing what you are doing." His generals saw him distracted: he would leave meetings early, spend hours writing letters, or stare at the miniature of Josephine he wore around his neck. He had been driven to this state by the unbearable distance between them and by a slight coldness he now detected 69 70 • The Art of Seduction An absence, the declining in her—she wrote infrequently, and her letters lacked passion; nor did she of an invitation to dinner, join him in Italy. He had to finish his war fast, so that he could return to an unintentional, her side. Engaging the enemy with unusual zeal, he began to make mis-unconscious harshness are of more service than all takes. "To live for Josephine!" he wrote to her. "I work to get near you; I the cosmetics and fine kill myself to reach you." His letters became more passionate and erotic; a clothes in the world. friend of Josephine's who saw them wrote, "The handwriting [was] almost — M A R C E L PROUST indecipherable, the spelling shaky, the style bizarre and confused . . . . What a position for a woman to find herself in—being the motivating force behind the triumphal march of an entire army." There's also nightly, to the Months went by in which Napoleon begged Josephine to come to Italy unintiated, \ A peril— not

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  "What a sterile life," she wrote a friend. "Always the same routine: the Bois, the races, fittings; and to end an insipid day: dinner!" What wearied the courtesan most was the constant attention of her male admirers, who sought to monopolize her physical charms. Ah! always to be able to freely love the one whom One spring day in 1899, Liane was riding in an open carriage through one loves! To spend my life the Bois de Boulogne. As usual, men tipped their hats at her as she passed at your feet like our last by. But one of these admirers caught her by surprise: a young woman with days together. To protect long blond hair, who gave her an intense, worshipful stare. Liane smiled at you against imaginary satyrs so that I can be the the woman, who smiled and bowed in return. only one to throw you on A few days later Liane began to receive cards and flowers from a this bed of moss. . . . twenty-three-year-old American named Natalie Barney, who identified We'll find each other again in Lesbos, and when dusk herself as the blond admirer in the Bois de Boulogne, and asked for a ren- falls, we'll go deep in the dezvous. Liane invited Natalie to visit, but to amuse herself she decided to woods to lose the paths play a little joke: a friend would take her place, lounging on her bed in the leading to this century. I want to imagine us in this dark boudoir, while Liane would hide behind a screen. Natalie arrived at enchanted island of the appointed hour. She wore the costume of a Florentine page and carried immortals. I picture it as a bouquet of flowers. Kneeling before the bed, she began to praise the being so beautiful. Come, I'll describe for you those courtesan, comparing her to a Fra Angelico painting. All too soon, she delicate female couples, and heard someone laugh—and standing up she realized the joke that had been far from the cities and the played on her. She blushed and made for the door. When Liane hurried din, we'll forget everything out from behind the screen, Natalie chastised her: the courtesan had the but the Ethics of Beauty. face of an angel, but apparently not the spirit. Contrite, Liane whispered, —NATALIE BARNEY, LETTER TO LIANE DE POUGY,QUOTED IN "Come back tomorrow morning. I'll be alone." JEAN CHALON, PORTRAIT OF A The young American showed up the next day, wearing the same outfit. SEDUCTRESS:THE WORLD OF She was witty and spirited; Liane relaxed in her presence, and invited her to NATALIE BARNEY, TRANSLATED BY CAROL BARKO

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  One day, Chateaubriand told Récamier he had finally decided to finish his memoirs. And he had a confession to make: he told her the story of Sylphide, his imaginary lover when he was growing up. He had once hoped to meet a Sylphide in real life, but the women he had known had paled in comparison. Over the years he had forgotten about his imaginary lover, but now he was an old man, and he not only thought of her again, he could see her face and hear her voice. And with those memories he realized that he had in fact met Sylphide in real life—it was Madame Ré- Effect a Regression • 345 camier. The face and voice were close. More important, there was the calm spirit, the innocent, virginal quality. Reading to her the prayer to Sylphide he had just written, he told her he wanted to be young again, and seeing her had brought his youth back to him. Reconciled with Madame Ré- camier, he began to work again on the memoirs, which were eventually published under the title Memoirs from Beyond the Grave. Most critics agreed that the book was his masterpiece. The memoirs were dedicated to Madame Récamier, to whom he remained devoted until his death, in 1848. Interpretation. All of us carry within us an image of an ideal type of person whom we yearn to meet and love. Most often the type is a composite made up of bits and pieces of different people from our youth, and even of characters in books and movies. People who influenced us inordinately—a teacher for instance—may also figure. The traits have nothing to do with superficial interests. Rather, they are unconscious, hard to verbalize. We searched hardest for this ideal type in our adolescence, when we were more idealistic. Often our first loves have more of these traits than our subsequent affairs. For Chateaubriand, living with his family in their secluded castle, his first love was his sister Lucile, whom he adored and idealized. But since love with her was impossible, he created a figure out of his imagination who had all her positive attributes—nobility of spirit, innocence, courage.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The dynamics of the Ideal Lover have limitless possibilities, not all of them erotic. In politics, Talleyrand essentially played the role of the Ideal Lover with Napoleon, whose ideal in both a cabinet minister and a friend was a man who was aristocratic, smooth with the ladies—all the things that Napoleon himself was not. In 1798, when Talleyrand was the French foreign minister, he hosted a party in Napoleon's honor after the great general's dazzling military victories in Italy. To the day Napoleon died, he remembered this party as the best he had ever attended. It was a lavish affair, and Talleyrand wove a subtle message into it by placing Roman busts around the house, and by talking to Napoleon of reviving the imperial glories of ancient Rome. This sparked a glint in the leader's eye, and indeed, a few years later, Napoleon gave himself the title of emperor—a move that The Ideal Lover • 39 only made Talleyrand more powerful. The key to Talleyrand's power was his ability to fathom Napoleon's secret ideal: his desire to be an emperor, a dictator. Talleyrand simply held up a mirror to Napoleon and let him glimpse that possibility. People are always vulnerable to insinuations like this, which stroke their vanity, almost everyone's weak spot. Hint at something for them to aspire to, reveal your faith in some untapped potential you see in them, and you will soon have them eating out of your hand. If Ideal Lovers are masters at seducing people by appealing to their higher selves, to something lost from their childhood, politicians can benefit by applying this skill on a mass scale, to an entire electorate. This was what John F. Kennedy quite deliberately did with the American public, most obviously in creating the "Camelot" aura around himself. The word "Camelot" was applied to his presidency only after his death, but the romance he consciously projected through his youth and good looks was fully functioning during his lifetime. More subtly, he also played with America's images of its own greatness and lost ideals. Many Americans felt that with the wealth and comfort of the late 1950s had come great losses; ease and conformity had buried the country's pioneer spirit. Kennedy appealed to those lost ideals through the imagery of the New Frontier, which was ex-emplified by the space race. The American instinct for adventure could find outlets here, even if most of them were symbolic. And there were other calls for public service, such as the creation of the Peace Corps. Through appeals like these, Kennedy resparked the uniting sense of mission that had gone missing in America during the years since World War II. He also attracted to himself a more emotional response than presidents commonly got. People literally fell in love with him and the image.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  agent, a modeling star of the fifties who had the manner of a dorm mother and the heart of a pimp. Over the months, though, you started eating at better restaurants and Amanda started getting her hair cut on the Upper East Side. The first time she went to Italy for the fall showings, she cried at the airport. She reminded you that in a year and a half you had never spent a night apart. She said to hell with it, she would skip Italy, screw modeling. You convinced her to go. She called every night from Milan. Later on these separations did not seem so traumatic. You postponed your honeymoon indefinitely because she had to do the spring collections three days after the wedding. You were busy with your own work. There were nights you got home after she was asleep. You looked at her across the breakfast nook in the morning and it often seemed that she was looking through the walls of the apartment building halfway across the continent to the plains, as if she had forgotten something there and couldn’t quite remember what it was. Her eyes reflected the flat vastness of her native ground. She sat with her elbows on the butcher-block table, twisting a strand of hair in her fingers, head cocked to one side as if she were listening for voices on the wind. There was always something elusive about her, a quality you found mysterious and unsettling. You suspected she herself couldn’t quite identify the longing that she variously attached to you, to her job, to having and spending, to her missing father, and that she had once attached to the idea of getting married. You were married. And still she was looking for something. But then she would cook you a special dinner, leave love notes in your briefcase and your bureau drawers. A few months ago she was packing for a trip to Paris when she began to cry. You asked her what was wrong. She said she was nervous about the trip. By the time the cab arrived she was fine. You kissed at the door. She told you to water the plants. The day before she was due home, she called. Her voice sounded peculiar. She said she wasn’t coming home. You didn’t understand. “You got a later flight?” “I’m staying,” she said. “For how long?”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Genji went far away, and things settled down. Then the emperor died and his son took over. A kind of emptiness had come to the court: the dozens of women whom Genji had seduced could not endure his absence, and flooded him with letters. Even women who had never known him intimately would weep over any relic he had left behind—a robe, for instance, in which his scent still lingered. And the young emperor missed his jocular presence. And the princesses missed the music he had played on the koto. And Oborozukiyo pined for his midnight visits. Finally even Kokiden broke down, realizing that she could not resist him. So Genji was summoned back to the court. And not only was he forgiven, he was given a hero's welcome; the young emperor himself greeted the scoundrel with tears in his eyes. The Natural • 65 The story of Genji's life is told in the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a woman of the Heian court. The character was most likely based on a real-life man, Fujiwara no Korechika. Indeed another book of the period, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, describes an encounter between the female author and Korechika, and reveals his incredible charm and his almost hypnotic effect on women. Genji is a Natural, an undefensive lover, a man who has a lifelong obsession with women but whose appreciation of and affection for them makes him irresistible. As he says to Oborozukiyo in the novel, "I am always allowed my way." This self-belief is half of Genji's charm. Resistance does not make him defensive; he retreats gracefully, reciting a little poetry, and as he leaves, the perfume of his robes trailing behind him, his victim wonders why she has been so afraid, and what she is missing by spurning him, and she finds a way to let him know that the next time things will be different. Genji takes nothing seriously or personally, and at the age of forty, an age at which most men of the eleventh century were already looking old and worn, he still seems like a boy. His seductive powers never leave him. Human beings are immensely suggestible; their moods will easily spread to the people around them. In fact seduction depends on mimesis, on the conscious creation of a mood or feeling that is then reproduced by the other person. But hesitation and awkwardness are also contagious, and are deadly to seduction. If in a key moment you seem indecisive or self-conscious, the other person will sense that you are thinking of yourself, instead of being overwhelmed by his or her charms. The spell will be broken.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  larly from wealthy men, for at the time she was considered the most beauti- [ Greco] stretched ful woman in the world. Aristotle Onassis and the Shah of Iran telephoned languorously in an her almost daily, begging for a date. She turned them all down. A few days armchair of her Paris house after her arrival, though, she received an invitation from Elsa Maxwell, the and observed: • "They say I am a dangerous woman. society hostess, who was giving a little party in Cannes. Rita balked but Well, Aly was a dangerous Maxwell insisted, telling her to buy a new dress, show up a little late, and man. He was charming in make a grand entrance. a very special way. There is a kind of man who is very Rita played along, and arrived at the party wearing a white Grecian clever with women. He gown, her red hair falling over her bare shoulders. She was greeted by a re- takes you out to a action she had grown used to: all conversation stopped as both men and restaurant and if the most beautiful woman comes in, women turned in their chairs, the men gazing in amazement, the women he doesn't look at her. He jealous. A man hurried to her side and escorted her to her table. It was makes you feel you are a thirty-seven-year-old Prince Aly Khan, the son of the Aga Khan III, who queen. Of course, I understood it. I didn 't was the worldwide leader of the Islamic Ismaili sect and one of the richest believe it. I would laugh men in the world. Rita had been warned about Aly Khan, a notorious rake. and point out the To her dismay, they were seated next to each other, and he never left her beautiful woman. But that side. He asked her a million questions—about Hollywood, her interests, on is me. . . . Most women are made very happy by and on. She began to relax a little and open up. There were other beautiful that kind of attention. It's women there, princesses, actresses, but Aly Khan ignored them all, acting as pure vanity. She thinks, if Rita were the only woman there. He led her onto the dance floor, and 'I'll be the one and the others will leave.' though he was an expert dancer, she felt uncomfortable—he held her a lit- • " . . . With Aly, how tle too close. Still, when he offered to drive her back to her hotel, she the woman felt was most agreed. They sped along the Grande Corniche; it was a beautiful night. For important. . . . He was a great charmer, a great one evening she had managed to forget her many problems, and she was seducer. He made you feel grateful, but she was still in love with Welles, and an affair with a rake like fine and that everything Aly Khan was not what she needed.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Our personalities are often molded by how we are treated: if a parent or spouse is defensive or argumentative in dealing with us, we tend to respond the same way. Never mistake people's exterior characteristics for reality, for the character they show on the surface may be merely a reflection of the people with whom they have been most in contact, or a front disguising its own opposite. A gruff exterior may hide a person dying for warmth; a repressed, sober-looking type may actually be struggling to conceal uncontrollable emotions. That is the key to charm—feeding what has been repressed or denied. By indulging the queen, by making himself a source of pleasure, Disraeli was able to soften a woman who had grown hard and cantankerous. Indulgence is a powerful tool of seduction: it is hard to be angry or defensive with someone who seems to agree with your opinions and tastes. Charmers may appear to be weaker than their targets but in the end they are the more powerful side because they have stolen the ability to resist. 2. In 1971, the American financier and Democratic Party power-player Averell Harriman saw his life drawing to a close. He was seventy-nine, his wife of many years, Marie, had just died, and with the Democrats out 86 • The Art of Seduction of office his political career seemed over. Feeling old and depressed, he resigned himself to spending his last years with his grandchildren in quiet retirement. A few months after Marie's death, Harriman was talked into attending a Washington party. There he met an old friend, Pamela Churchill, whom he had known during World War II, in London, where he had been sent as a personal envoy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was twenty-one at the time, and was the wife of Winston Churchill's son Randolph. There had certainly been more beautiful women in the city, but none had been more pleasant to be around: she was so attentive, listening to his problems, befriending his daughter (they were the same age), and calming him whenever he saw her. Marie had remained in the States, and Randolph was in the army, so while bombs rained on London Averell and Pamela had begun an affair. And in the many years since the war, she had kept in touch with him: he knew about the breakup of her marriage, and about her endless series of affairs with Europe's wealthiest playboys. Yet he had not seen her since his return to America, and to his wife. What a strange coincidence to run into her at this particular moment in his life. At the party Pamela pulled Harriman out of his shell, laughing at his jokes and getting him to talk about London in the glory days of the war.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  us have been stamped with the imprint of parent figures; and nothing con- modified my own reactions jures up this shared experience more than myth. The patterns of myth, accordingly. . . . " • Age: born out of warring feelings of helplessness on the one hand and thirst for 26, Sex: female, Nation-immortality on the other, are deeply engraved in us all. ality: British "I only fell in love once with a movie Mythic Stars are figures of myth come to life. To appropriate their actor. It was Conrad Veidt. power, you must first study their physical presence—how they adopt a dis- His magnetism and his tinctive style, are cool and visually arresting. Then you must assume the personality got me. His voice and gestures fascin-pose of a mythic figure: the rebel, the wise patriarch, the adventurer. (The ated me. I hated him, pose of a Star who has struck one of these mythic poses might do the trick.) feared him, loved him. Make these connections vague; they should never be obvious to the con-When he died it seemed to me that a vital part of my scious mind. Your words and actions should invite interpretation beyond imagination died too, and their surface appearance; you should seem to be dealing not with specific, my world of dreams was nitty-gritty issues and details but with matters of life and death, love and bare. " hate, authority and chaos. Your opponent, similarly, should be framed —J. P . MAYER, BRITISH not merely as an enemy for reasons of ideology or competition but as a vil-CINEMAS AND THEIR AUDIENCES lain, a demon. People are hopelessly susceptible to myth, so make yourself the hero of a great drama. And keep your distance—let people identify with you without being able to touch you. They can only watch and dream. 126 • The Art of Seduction The savage worships idols Jack's life had more to do with myth, magic, legend, saga, of wood and stone; the and story than with political theory or political science. civilized man, idols of flesh —JACQUELINE KENNEDY, A WEEK AFTER JOHN KENNEDY'S DEATH and blood. — G E O R G E BERNARD SHAW Keys to the Character When the eye's rays encounter some clear, well- polished object— be it Seduction is a form of persuasion that seeks to bypass consciousness, stirring the unconscious mind instead. The reason for this is simple: we are burnished steel or glass or so surrounded by stimuli that compete for our attention, bombarding us water, a brilliant stone, or with obvious messages, and by people who are overtly political and manipu-any other polished and

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  its imagination or realism, dream, or a movie star or political star, or even one of those real-life fasci-the meaningful impressions nators, like a Warhol, who may cross our path? Unable to have them, we it leaves—t hese are all become obsessed with them—they haunt our thoughts, our dreams, our secondary. Only the myth fantasies. We imitate them unconsciously. The psychologist Sandor Feris powerful, and at the heart of the enczi calls this "introjection": another person becomes part of our ego, we cinematographic myth lies internalize their character. That is the insidious seductive power of a Star, a seduction— that of the power you can appropriate by making yourself into a cipher, a mix of the renowned seductive figure, a man or woman (but real and the unreal. Most people are hopelessly banal; that is, far too real. The Star • 127 What you need to do is etherealize yourself. Your words and actions seem above all a woman) linked to come from your unconscious—have a certain looseness to them. You to the ravishing but specious power of the hold yourself back, occasionally revealing a trait that makes people wonder cinematographic image whether they really know you. itself. . . . • The star is by The Star is a creation of modern cinema. That is no surprise: film re- no means an ideal or sublime being: she is creates the dream world. We watch a movie in the dark, in a semisomno- artificial. . . . Her presence lent state. The images are real enough, and to varying degrees depict serves to submerge all realistic situations, but they are projections, flickering lights, images—we sensibility and expression know they are not real. It as if we were watching someone else's dream. It beneath a ritual fascination with the void, beneath was the cinema, not the theater, that created the Star. ecstasy of her gaze and the On a theater stage, actors are far away, lost in the crowd, too real in nullity of her smile. This is their bodily presence. What enabled film to manufacture the Star was the how she achieves mythical status and becomes subject close-up, which suddenly separates actors from their contexts, filling your to collective rites of mind with their image. The close-up seems to reveal something not sacrificial adulation. • The so much about the character they are playing but about themselves. We ascension of the cinema idols, the masses' glimpse something of Greta Garbo herself when we look so closely into divinities, was and remains her face. Never forget this while fashioning yourself as a Star. First, you a central story of modern must have such a large presence that you can fill your target's mind the way times. . . . There is no point in dismissing it as

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  arson in her heart. \ hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and she wore tailored suits. It was a Penelope was racked by serious look, befitting a woman who was to become the savior of the poor. crafty Ulysses's absence, \ Soon her image could be seen everywhere—her initials on the walls, the Protesilaus, abroad, made Laodameia burn. \ Short sheets, the towels of the hospitals for the poor; her profile on the jerseys of partings do best, though: a soccer team from the poorest part of Argentina, whose club she spon-time wears out affections, \ sored; her giant smiling face covering the sides of buildings. Since finding The absent love fades, a out anything personal about her had become impossible, all kinds of elabo-new one takes its place. \ With Menelaus away, rate fantasies began to spring up about her. And when cancer cut her life Helen's disinclination for short, in 1952, at the age of thirty-three (the age of Christ when he died), sleeping \ Alone led her the country went into mourning. Millions filed past her embalmed body. into her guest's \ Warm bed at night. Were you crazy, She was no longer a radio actress, a wife, a first lady, but Evita, a saint. Menelaus? — O V I D , T H E A R T O F L O V E , TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN Interpretation. Eva Duarte was an illegitimate child who had grown up in poverty, escaped to Buenos Aires to become an actress, and been forced to do many tawdry things to survive and get ahead in the theater world. Her Concerning the Birth of dream was to escape all of the constraints on her future, for she was in-Love • Here is what tensely ambitious. Perón was the perfect victim. He imagined himself a happens in the soul: • great leader, but the reality was that he was fast becoming a lecherous old 1. Admiration. • 2. You think, "Mow delightful it man who was too weak to raise himself up. Eva injected poetry into his Poeticize Your Presence • 281 life. Her language was florid and theatrical; she surrounded him with atten- would be to kiss her, to tion, indeed to the point of suffocation, but a woman's dutiful service to a be kissed by her," and so on. . . . • 3. Hope. You great man was a classic image, and was celebrated in innumerable tango bal- observe her perfections, and lads. Yet she managed to remain elusive, mysterious, like a movie star you it is at this moment that a see all the time on the screen but never really know. And when Perón was woman really ought to surrender, for the utmost