Victoria
first read a piece by the Count Herman Alexander
Keyserling in a 1927 article in Review of the
West. She was immediately fascinated by this eccentric
German vitalist, the founder of the School of
Wisdom, whom Ramón Gómez de la Serna
would call “the last Western myth.”
She soon established a written correspondence
with Keyserling that would last a year and a half,
and became enthusiastic about the idea of bringing
him to Buenos Aires to lecture. But faced with
the philosopher’s negative reception to
the idea, Victoria finally decided to travel to
Europe herself in order to meet him. Admiration
soon turned to disillusionment. The meeting took
place at the Hotel des Réservois in Versailles;
all of the expenses were assumed by Victoria.
When Keyserling, overtaken by the beauty and the
enthusiasm of the Argentine lady, overstepped
his bounds, Victoria rejected his propositions.
In spite of this trying start, however, Victoria
returned to Buenos Aires and began preparations
for the arrival of the philosopher. It was then
that things went from bad to worse: upon his arrival
Keyserling proceeded to drink himself into a tumult
at the reception in his honor, calling Victoria
“the Indian with arrows.” Nonetheless,
in his Memoirs Keyserling admits to having felt
before Victoria the “feeling of being enslaved
by the most spiritual woman I had ever met.”
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