The Madame called on him to express her sympathy—and congratulations. She had written a book, but it had not been burned—not even read! She was tall, thin, angular, far from handsome, but had beaming eyes and a face that tokened intellect. And best of all, her voice was low, finely modulated, and was not exercised more than was meet.
She leaned her chin upon her hand and looked at him.
She had met Voltaire when she was a child—at least she said so, and he, being a gentleman, remembered perfectly. She read to him a little manuscript she had just dashed off. It was deep, profound and full of reasons—that is the way learned women write—they write like professors of rhetoric. Really great men write lightly, suggestively, and with a certain amount of indifference, dash, froth and foam. When women evolve literary foam, it is the sweet, cloying, fixed foam of the charlotte russe—not the bubbling, effervescent Voltaire article.
Could M. de Voltaire suggest a way in which her manuscript might be lightened up so the public executioner would deign to notice it?
M. de Voltaire responded by reading to her a little thing of his own.
The next day she called again.
Some say that Madame called on Voltaire to secure a loan on her husband's estate at Civey. No matter—she got the loan.
Doubtless she did not know where she was going—none of us do. We are all sailing under sealed orders.
The Madame had been married eight years. She was versed in Latin and knew Italian literature. She was educated; Voltaire was not. She offered to teach him Italian if he would give her lessons in English.
They read to each other things they had recently written. When men and women read to each other and mingle their emotions, the danger-line is being reached. Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener.