Echoing the very title with Herzen’s memoir chronicle “The Past and Thoughts,” Nina Voronel’s book takes us at the same time, to the same circumstances and surroundings, introduces us closer, sometimes from an unexpected angle, to the brightest personalities of the Belle Epoque through the prism of a woman perception – both of the author himself and of her heroines. Petra, a doctoral student at an American university, is writing a book about the most brilliant woman in 19th-century Europe. And he finds out that this is Lou Andreas von Salome, into whose network many outstanding men of those years fell - Nietzsche, Wagner, Paul Ree... Another extraordinary lady of the era is Malwida von Meysenbug, who played a significant role in the life of Herzen, Ogarev, Rolland, many and... the same Wagner and Nietzsche. This is how “European lace” was woven...