'A flower never becomes conscious of itself. That is its greatest charm. I did, and that was my first mistake...

'I will never forget the first time I discovered my reflection. I was stunned. Father was right. I was a poppy. Papa was playing downstairs and I swayed to his magic as if it were a breeze. I was enchanted. Now I understood why men smiled when I appeared in the Ringstrasse or Demel's Sweetshop or at the pantomime. But now I didn't understand why Rubinstein was not in love with me. Artur was all I ever dreamed of and all I ever wanted. I had known him all my life. I was fourteen.

'Now I didn't know how I could attract him more - as a nun or harem dancer. Which should I be? I visualized myself in the alternate roles, and Artur didn't visualize me at all. He saw me as I was - a baby with braids, braces on my teeth, and a big bow at my back that became creased whenever I sat down.

'It is impossible to describe my adoration for Artur. I worshiped him as a god. I loved him so that I even loved his sweethearts. If they were worthy of his love then it followed that they must be goddesses. I had more goddesses than Mr Bullfinch. Artur's head was grotesque, his hands magnificent, and I always expected his feet to be cloven. He looked just like Pan. He was my torment and my dream.

'When he played our Bechstein, I would leave my bed and hide on the steps in the hall and weep. While he was at dinner with the parents, I would find his coat in the entrance hall and put my cheek against it. After dinner, I would lie in wait, and before the servants could clear the table I would find his place and take his spoon to my room as a souvenir. I put it under my pillow. My diary was stained with tears and macaroons. Didn't Artur know that I would die for him? All he had to do was ask it.

'Somehow, this was the most graphic way of showing my love - sacrificing my life to him. I adored the idea. The notion grew in my mind until I knew every tragic detail of my finish. I played the scene daily as other children played hopscotch, the reverie occupying every idle moment - sitting with the governess in the Belvedere, studying my Latin, preparing for sleep. I expired in a hundred different settings; and somewhere vaguely in the frame of my vision was Artur brilliantly playing Chopin's Funeral March in a storm of self-reproach as he gazed at my white-clad, shattered little body. The picture was divinely satisfying…

'…The attentions of other men embarrassed me and made them seem silly. The more adulation I received, the more remote I became. The more remote I became, the more adulation I received. The poppy became an edelweiss. With these admirers, I was a bright young lady; with Artur [around the time of the First World War] I was a self-conscious, tongue-tied little girl. He didn't know I was alive!'

- © Dagmar Godowsky, First Person Plural, New York 1958

'... quite beautiful... She looked like a Persian miniature ... her heavy black hair, almond-shaped eyes, pretty nose, and full, red arched mouth made her look older than her age. Both Karol [Szymanowski] and I became sensuously aware of her presence; and she was coquettish and provocative towards us... quite a girl, this Dagmar.'

- Arthur Rubinsten, My Young Years, London 1973 © Aniela Rubinstein, Eva Rubinstein Coffin, Alina Anna Rubinstein, Arthur Rubinstein

I met Dagmar in London more than thirty years ago. We had English afternoon tea, I remember, in the Palm Court of the Waldorf, off the Strand. She wanted me to 'ghost' her father's biography. Aged, roundly-proportioned, over-bearingly made-up, Jewishly flamboyant in her memories, ever the actress, she spoke as she wrote. It was so unreal, I turned her down. AO