Benjamin's gift

His European-North Dakota-Jewish origins were humble, but New York tycoon Jean Pierre Michael Chernovsky eventually towered over a gilded era. To money itself he was indifferent. All that mattered was that he was able to surround himself with things of beauty, not the least of which was his exotic companion Cassandra Nutt, whose thirst for life was exceeded only by Jean Pierre's own fabulous hunger for cars, clocks, cloaks, pianos, horses, houses, swimming pools, airplanes, and lovers. Then, at the age of seventy-one, Jean Pierre Michel finally acquires the one possession that has always…