Dancing in the vortex

"This was no ordinary woman: she was a chameleon; a diva who lived many lives; a woman who overcame the endemic, fashionable anti-semitism of her times to enchant and captivate the highest of societies. She touched the sun and lit flames all over Europe, only to disappear into complete obscurity. Here was the aristocrat who drank champagne out of madonna leaves and had two great loves, one woman, one man. Here was a woman who scandalized society from Paris to St. Petersburg, whose charisma attracted people from Marc Chagall to Sarah Bernhardt and Jean Cocteau to the first Lord Moyne; here was…