Historical Figure: Mata Hari and Isadora Duncan

Mata Hari By Toni Aguilar

The story of Mata Hari—or, more precisely, the legendary character embodied by Margaretha Geertruida "Griet" Zelle, a Dutch woman born in Leeuwarden on August 7, 1876—uniquely characterized the figure of the "femme fatale" that is so representative of the Sexual 2 personality. This queen of seduction represented the fascinating face of the Belle Époque, symbolizing free sexuality and pleasure. In some ways, she personified the wild, feline, and capricious woman capable of enchanting a large audience, especially male, with her sacred oriental dances and her great ability to attract and please.

When the more sober and puritanical times of World War I arrived, the proud, seductive, and sexual traits that had earned her so much adoration and glory throughout Paris—and made her a star all over Europe as a dancer and high-class courtesan—were also responsible for the tragic end of her life. Through a malicious and dark plot, she was accused of being a double agent working as a spy for Germany. After being declared guilty without conclusive evidence, she was executed by a French firing squad in Vincennes, near Paris, on October 15, 1917.

As stated in the prologue of the biography written by Par:

"The most important thing to know about Margaretha Zelle is that she liked men. The other crucial aspect is that she didn’t like the truth. By the time she transformed into Mata Hari, she was already an expert at shaping the world to her liking."

Her childhood and life were marked by her relationship with her father, a prime example of the genesis of this proud character and her instinctive tendency toward seduction.

Seduction was understood as a promise of surrender and pleasure that emanated from her entire being. It was a manipulation of love, a game of love that demanded everything in return and where, in reality, she never fully gave her heart. She turned men into puppets that danced to her tune. A dangerous vamp who got everything she wanted from them:

their desire, their favors, and their fortunes. "Seduction" is the word that best defines the Sexual subtype of E2, and it is the one that most characterizes the life of this courtesan and dancer.

Her father, Mr. Adam Zelle, a hat manufacturer whom his neighbors nicknamed the Baron "for his delusions of grandeur and his ability to 'build castles in the air,'" taught her from a young age to think that she was special. The relationship with her father was based on special treatment and an enchanting gaze, ensuring that she would be the center of attention and receive praise and compliments every time she sought them. She was accustomed from then on to the proud, seductive persona (Sexual 2) of Mata Hari, which was already being forged in her earliest childhood.

She was a little princess, and the Baron liked to show her off. The type of love he demonstrated made her feel wonderful and infinitely precious. She was the apple of his eye, and not even the birth of her siblings ever displaced his affection for her. She may have thought that he loved her more than her mother. In that highly oedipal relationship, the intimacy Margaretha gained from her father was not what would have been desirable due to her status as his daughter and her age. Instead, she triumphantly displaced her mother, which later shaped her way of relating to the masculine world, hierarchy, and society.

Her father enrolled her in the most expensive school in town despite their modest finances, and on her first day of school, he sent her in a golden carriage pulled by two little white goats as if they were royal steeds.

Although her father eventually went bankrupt, he passed on to her a taste for luxury and the desire to shine, which, as a schoolmate would later recall, was the most memorable trait of Margaretha at school.

The proud, swollen self-image, and arrogant personality were formed based on a sense of personal importance and superiority that her father instilled in her throughout her life.

He bought her wonderful, bright-colored dresses, such as a scarlet velvet one she wore to school. She would twirl to show her father how her skirt sparkled, and he would beam with joy and tell her how beautiful she was. She did the same in front of her friends at the exclusive Buys school, who would stare at her wide-eyed. They feigned scandal at a dress they considered inappropriate for a child of her age, but she knew that in reality, they were simply jealous. To her classmates, muted colors were more appropriate. They could have easily afforded such a dress, but they would never have worn it with the same elegance. Their pale skin and dull hair, along with their lack of personality, condemned them. Only someone like her, with a great dark, wavy mane, an irresistible gaze, and skin the color of café au lait, someone whose essence was "Look at me!" could wear it.

The type of relationship she developed with her father created the compulsive script of seeking applause, recognition, and passion that defined her life. The public adored her, especially men, who would remain spellbound at her feet.

At thirteen, Margaretha was a vain and self-centered girl, accustomed to her father indulging her every whim, making her life easy, magical, and fun. But her father's business and investments went from bad to worse, until he was forced to declare bankruptcy. Mr. Zelle went to work in The Hague and left his family in a cheap apartment with little money to live on. Margaretha must have felt her first abandonment. After several months, he returned, but the situation with his wife became unbearable, and after a scandalous separation, her mother died. Margaretha experienced a second abandonment when, instead of going to live with her father, she was sent to live with relatives, who enrolled her in a school in Leiden, where, soon after, a sexual scandal occurred.

At sixteen, Margaretha was a good student, highly seductive and attractive, and she had sexual relations with the director of the institution, Wybrandus Haanstra, a 51-year-old man who held a prestigious position and reputation. Though he was married, he fell deeply in love with her. This story seemed to represent one of the first successes of young Margaretha's seductive arts, where she proved her ability to attract and provoke passion. But in the end, she was blamed, accused of scandal, and returned home dishonored, while Haanstra remained esteemed and maintained both his position and good reputation. Today, his behavior would be considered a sexual offense for abusing a minor, but in 1893, it was considered that she was the immoral one and the one to blame.

She quickly discovered that pleasing a man was a way to gain power and the ability to manipulate him. The early erotic burden in her relationship with her father eventually transformed into the ability to seduce for self-interested sexuality. She became an expert at opening or awakening desire in others, deploying a web-like strategy in which her suitors, or rather, her victims, would fall and get tangled in her disturbing love games, losing their will, while she could live off their favors and fortunes. She was a woman with expensive tastes; she liked to squander the fortunes of her lovers in luxury hotels, fashionable clothing, restaurants... all in exchange for her precious love. She acted as a high-class courtesan.

Did she realize she was trying to recreate the magic of her father’s love during her childhood? Probably not. The defense mechanism of the Sexual 2 structure is repression. The repression of everything that doesn't fit into her inflated self-image, the one that is so magnificent and brilliant, where, of course, the word "dependency" is excluded from the vocabulary. She probably never accepted being dependent on men; rather, she used them and provoked their surrender and dependence.

The pain of being abandoned by her beloved father became the yearning that imprinted on her drive to seek male attention, which was overvalued and may have lasted a lifetime.

The crumbling of her love relationships was a false surrender. All men loved her, all adored her, some had the pleasure of sharing her most intimate moments, but she kept her heart well-guarded.

With a weakness for uniforms, especially those of officers, Margaretha responded to a matrimonial advertisement in the newspaper Nieuws van de Dag, from an officer of the Dutch East Indies on leave, Captain Rudolf MacLeod, twenty years older than her. From their first date, Margaretha signed her letters as: "Your future wife who already loves you." This is the prototype of the impulsiveness of the Sexual 2, who, when desiring something, covers up their true motivation with the best possible intentions. Justifying it, of course, with the very good reasons of the heart and skin, even hiding from herself the interests that linked her to a future that was exotic, secure, and adventurous. And in the name of the fire of love and passion, and driven by incongruity, she embarked on a new life in Java, which soon led to failure.

After the honeymoon, the deterioration of the relationship was already evident. She described it in several of her letters: "Well, the marriage changed when the money ran out; I didn’t marry to live without luxuries, and I was flirtatious, and he didn’t like that, he was very jealous."

Or in another: "He was much older than me... He could almost have been my father. And also a woman with my temperament... I want to confess honestly and openly that when I saw a handsome young man, my heart raced. And that’s something very normal and impossible to avoid... I was very temperamental. And I also had artistic aspirations, I had inclinations that made it impossible for a woman like me to be a good housewife... I didn’t feel happy in the house, I admit it openly; I wanted to live like a colorful butterfly under the sun rather than in the tranquility of my room."

After her failed marriage and unfortunate life in the Dutch East Indies with her husband and family, one of her children, Norman, died at the age of four under strange circumstances. Several stories have been written about the possible cause of his death; they seem to correspond more to the legend of her character than to reality. The most plausible assumption today is that Norman died from mercury poisoning after being treated for congenital syphilis. The death of this child aggravated the family situation to the point of divorce in 1902.

She moved to Paris, hoping to find work, tried acting, and posed for artists, but her only source of income was pleasing men in exchange for money.

Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, Griet reappeared as Mata Hari in Paris in 1905 after a life filled with sorrow and hardships. This is a circumstance often observed in the biographies of E2s: a glorious childhood period in which they were treated like a queen, sometimes followed by a period of pain and humiliation, to then rise again with strength and determination; a wounded pride that incubates its power until the right moment for its manifestation. Above all, they see themselves and their interests. It's as if the time for revenge had arrived in their life.

She reborn with a sharp sense of what could be successful. She developed a series of "sacred dances" she had learned in the Dutch East Indies. Her style was anything but classical and seemed to be the birth of an original style that combined extreme sensuality with a devotional and religious oriental atmosphere. Passion and drama merged in a provocative yet sublime dance. She wore excellent costumes that caught attention with transparencies that were more than evocative, along with Javanese jewels that combined gold with precious stones.

Mata Hari later explained to a friend: "I never danced well. People came to see me because I was the first to dare to appear naked in public. I performed just like hundreds of women do; I speculated with sensuality; I flirted with the audience, something that has always been easy for me, and always has been."

Mata Hari's passion was seduction, attracting and pleasing, the power to conquer and fall in love using her entire body, movements, gaze, and voice... Her entire being exuded provocation and desire. She knew it and took advantage of it. Mata Hari's performances became extremely popular across Europe.

Margaretha invented a lineage from a Brahmin family from India. She imagined her mother as a glorious temple dancer from the Kanda Swany temple who died at fourteen on the day she was born. She claimed that the priests from the temple adopted her and named her Mata Hari, meaning "pupil of the dawn," and that it was in the pagoda of Shiva where she learned the sacred rites of dance.

Mata Hari allowed herself to invent, create, and dream in front of the people who asked her about her past and history. The emotional motivation of her created dream dictated her supposed reality, which was shaped in the moment and according to the circumstances... Unclear dates, events explained in an enigmatic way with different protagonists. She changed scenarios, names, and cities, hiding significant data and facts. All this imagination was frequent and contributed to creating a mysterious and exotic aura that made her famous, ethereal, and above all, desirable.

Her truth, like in the world of pride, is relative, dictated by the emotional reality of the moment or, rather, the instant. The impulse to please is unstoppable. The details and

objective facts don't matter. It's a truth that fits into the story to satisfy the artistic creation of the moment, magnifying a self-created, fabulous, and magnificent image. The sexual instinct gives pride the ability for externalization, dramatization, and staging like no other subtype. Conscious or unconscious emotions find the right stage to gain attention and applause.

Her first public appearance and successes came when her performances began in salons and theaters, with magazines and newspapers commenting on her art and giving her great reviews.

When she had already become the Indian dancer Mata Hari in Paris, La Presse reported on March 18, 1905: "Mata Hari is Absaras, sister of the nymphs, the water nymphs, the valkyries, and the naiads, created by Indra for the perdition of men and sages."

Parisian Life presented her as "an Indian dancer, voluptuous and tragic, dancing naked in fashionable salons. She wears a temple dancer's outfit, as simplified as possible, and in the end, she reduces it even more."

Her success was based on her ability to play her emotions in a unique representation. Mata Hari exploited her histrionic abilities to the fullest in her art and dance. Every gesture and undulation of her body turned into sensual movements that not only suggested but provoked a passionate response in the male audience. She became an icon of feline femininity, wildly erotic and mysterious, thanks to seduction and concealment. To avoid appearing as a trivial courtesan, she presented herself as a goddess and invented a sacred origin for her art.

Her sentimental life was filled with lovers, holders of great fortunes and power: sovereigns, ministers, ambassadors, bankers, officers, police chiefs...

The Belle Époque, which had begun around 1890, was characterized by extravagance and the display of luxury in private salons and fashionable restaurants. Successful men had beautiful lovers that they proudly exhibited, as they were accepted in society.

In Vienna, one of them, Alfred Kiepert, after separating from Griet due to family obligations, gifted her 300,000 marks, equivalent to more than a million euros today. She, who loved luxury and stayed in top-tier hotels without worrying about the price, found a new wealthy lover, a handsome and well-off stockbroker named Xavier Rousseau. He rented a country estate in Esvres where Mata Hari lived for an extended period. Rousseau, who visited her every weekend, provided her with four magnificent horses, a carriage, luxury furniture, and servants: in addition to her loyal maid, a second servant, a stable boy, a coachman, a cook, and a gardener. Neither Rousseau’s wife nor his mother were able to persuade him to leave

Mata Hari, until Rousseau went bankrupt and his wife accused Mata Hari of his financial ruin.

The giving of love came in exchange for large sums. What did the irresistible lover ask from the men? Everything. Possession took meaning when discovering Mata Hari’s ability to ask for men’s company, money, and favors.

What did Mata Hari offer to men? A mix of wild passion, feminine tenderness, and the ability to entertain. The scent of freedom and independence, combined with her seductive arts, subdued the powerful men of her time, turning them into puppets that moved at her will.

Faced with a need for money, she asked her agent if he knew anyone who would like to protect artists and invest money in her, as she was in a bit of a difficult situation and urgently needed 30,000 francs (about 120,000 euros today). She was practically trying to use her agent as a pimp, but she had no moral qualms; she was a woman who lived as she wished and had all the lovers she wanted.

In 1914, the Belle Époque came to an end with the declaration of war. Foreigners were treated as animals, and she was arrested several times. The Germans had confiscated her accounts and belongings when the war started (living in Berlin as a foreigner), which she never forgave them for, leading to an intense feeling of revenge.

She moved to The Hague, supported by another lover, Colonel Van der Capellan, but in wartime Holland, life was dull, gray, and without glamour. So, Mata Hari decided to bring more action into her life.

As the official lover of Colonel Van der Capellan of the Dutch army, she was also the lover of Belgian Commander Marquis de Beaufort and Russian Captain Masslov, who presented her as his girlfriend, and she pretended he was her great love. This triple relationship didn’t stop her from having fleeting affairs with an officer from Montenegro, an Italian, two Irishmen, three or four Englishmen, and five officers from France. Far from being ashamed, she took pride in it:

"I love officers, I have loved them all my life. I prefer being the lover of a poor officer than a rich banker. My greatest pleasure is to go to bed with them without thinking of money, and then I enjoy making comparisons between the different nationalities."

Yes, it seems that she had a fixation on uniforms. In her biography, she recounts the fascination she felt when looking at a painting where her father, wearing a military uniform, was riding his horse.

In the fall of 1916, she was visited by Karl Kroemer, a German honorary consul who recruited spies throughout Europe, and he tried to convince her to join his organization by offering her 20,000 francs, a very large sum. But she said it wasn’t enough and asked for more. Kroemer explained that it was only a trial period and that in the future she could earn more; he also asked her to write using invisible ink and gave her three bottles.

Later, she would express that she was bored, with no entertainment, and that her lover, Colonel Van der Capellan, visited her infrequently. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, she was resentful of the Germans, who had unfairly confiscated her money and fur coats in Berlin.

To convince her to join the spy network, the Germans used childish flattery such as: “You, who are the only one who understands...,” “You, who want peace...,” “You, who have the most influence...,” “You, who could prevent so many misfortunes...”

Here we see how an expert seductress falls into her own trap, seduced by flattery and manipulative strategies tied to her heart and the concept of peace. They inflated her pride, and feeling deserving of all the adulation, she fell into the spy network like one of those arrogant little birds from fables.

She accepted the money without any intention of working for Germany; instead, she went to the canals and threw out the contents of the three bottles of invisible ink, along with the bottles themselves. She didn’t feel guilty or obligated to do anything, despite having accepted the 20,000 francs. Her whole life, she had accepted money from different men simply because they had it, and she needed it; she always thought she deserved it. So why not do the same now?

This is the tantrum of a spoiled child, used to getting her way: lying childishly to a German consul running a spy agency.

In 1916, Mata Hari fell deeply in love with a Russian officer who was eighteen years younger. He was twenty-one, and she was thirty-nine. She called Vladimir de Masslov, Vadime, and he called her Marina. He was perhaps the only man she truly gave herself to, even sending him money when he was wounded on the battlefield.

During the war, Mata Hari had lovers, officers, and politicians from both sides; she could cross borders with some freedom due to her contacts and influence (the reason she was investigated).

The French also wanted to recruit her as a spy. Mata Hari agreed again, this time demanding one million francs in exchange for seducing and extracting valuable information. With such a high amount, she hoped to retire with Vadime. Here again, love was the motivation, the fantasy of finally surrendering to the love of her life.

Judge Pierre Bouchardon, who sentenced her for espionage, never believed that Mata Hari was in love with Vadime or anyone else, except for herself and her sensual pleasures.

Mata Hari, who had never been faithful to men or the truth, and who always invented stories to favor herself, eventually got caught in a web of interests, a conspiracy against her that led to her conviction.

During the interrogations, it was clear that there was a lack of evidence, as well as Mata Hari’s disinterest in the events of the war. Accused of espionage, the elegant woman who had seduced all of Europe spent eight months in the dirty, rat-infested cells of Saint-Lazare prison, alongside prostitutes and petty criminals. Almost completely isolated, in prison she lived one of her greatest fears, which she had avoided all her life: loneliness.

The extreme circumstances almost drove her to madness, as she plunged into the deepest cold and painful hell that led to her breakdown and the loss of her pride. She begged for any improvement in her conditions; she no longer demanded, she pleaded. She asked for help from all her lovers and contacts who had once adored her, but very few spoke on her behalf, as defending a spy was highly inconvenient during this time in France. She came face to face with abandonment, the very thing she had been running from her whole life.

The paradox of Mata Hari's life is that, the queen of love, once in her life, found love, and barely had a chance to enjoy it for a few days. All the letters exchanged with Vadime, "possibly the only love of my life," were intercepted and never reached their destination.

She lived to the extreme with her manipulation and lack of boundaries until her pride gave way, and she was able to appreciate the profound meaning of the word “love,” with which she had played so much.

The morning of October 15, 1917 arrived. She was ready to die as she had lived: with elegance and bravery. She rejected the blindfold offered by an officer and refused to be tied to the post. She made a gesture with her hand to the two tearful nuns who had cared for her during the last months and blew a kiss to the priest, in a mischievous act she could not avoid, and another to her lawyer.

She died as Mata Hari, the woman who, through seduction, had everything and lost everything.

In 2000, the museum of the Institute of Anatomy in Paris announced that Mata Hari's head, which had been part of the collection since her death in 1917, had been stolen, presumably by an admirer. The passion remains alive.

How can we write the truth about ourselves? Do we even know it? There is the vision that our friends have of us; the vision we have of ourselves, and the vision that our lover has of

us. There is also the vision of our enemies. And all of them are different. [...] It seems to me that there is not just one, but hundreds, and that my soul is very far away, with none of those adventures really touching it.

Isadora Duncan has gone down in history as a dancer who made a significant contribution to the birth of modern dance. Visionary, she rebelled against the customs of her time and subverted, both in art and in her private life, the rigid social conventions. She dedicated her life to fighting for her "art" in the name of love and freedom. She sparked either merciless criticism or absolute admiration: they called her the Divine Isadora, an energetic, captivating, and visionary woman; or they condemned her for her nonconformity. She herself fostered her mythical image: in love with an exalted self-image, she never missed an opportunity to display provocative and exuberant attitudes, presenting herself as unique and unmatched.

Childhood

Dora Angela Duncan, in art Isadora Duncan, was born on May 27, 1877, in San Francisco. During her difficult pregnancy, it seems that her mother, a victim of a great spiritual crisis, survived solely on oysters and champagne. Often during her pregnancy, she would say: "This child who will be born will not be normal." After her birth, referring to her vitality, she would say: "You see, I was right: this child is manic." Isadora recalls how her mother’s discomfort marked her destiny: she began dancing while still in the womb.

Her mother was a pianist who gave private lessons. She was away from home all day and several hours in the evening. As a result, when they left school, Isadora and her siblings could wander for hours. Discipline did not exist, even in the presence of their mother, who, passionate about her music, almost ignored everything else around her. Always without money, they moved countless times because they could not afford rent. Poverty did not make Isadora suffer; rather, when there was nothing to eat at home, she took advantage of the situation to show off her seductive skills and her ability to take care of the family like a miniature mother:

"I was the bravest in my whole family, and when there was nothing to eat at home, I was the volunteer who was sent to the butcher to get, without paying, some lamb chops, through tricks and promises. I was the one who went to the bakery to renew the credit." She experienced a kind of adventurous joy when carrying out these errands, especially when she succeeded, which was actually not uncommon.

Her parents divorced when Isadora was three years old. Her mother, devastated by pain, decided that all feelings were nonsense: "There are no Kings, there is no God; there is nothing but your own spirit to help you," she would repeat to little Isadora.

Her first memory of her father is from when she was seven years old. Before that, she had imagined him as a demon, with horns and a tail, a mysterious figure whom no one wanted to talk about and who "had ruined her mother's life." In reality, he was an artist, a poet who had built fortunes and lost them several times.

One day, he showed up at their house. Unlike the rest of the family, Isadora welcomed him with open arms. She felt happy to have, like other children, a father, and especially happy to receive his attention: "He is an absolutely charming man and will come back tomorrow to buy me ice cream."

That "tomorrow" came years later, with a new economic well-being that allowed his ex-wife and children to live with fewer financial struggles. The return of her father and the financial security lasted only a short time: he abandoned them again to move to Los Angeles with his new family. The brief experience with her father left Isadora with a total aversion to marriage. More than being angry with her father, she felt resentment towards the narrow-minded society in which she lived, one that actually forced women to marry in order to keep their rights and honor. This rejection of marriage was not only due to her aspiration for a life without limitations, where everything was possible, but, above all, to exempting herself from the humiliation of a potential abandonment.

She was a very self-assured and enterprising child. At only six years old, she "opened" her first dance school and managed to gather a dozen neighborhood children whom she taught to move their arms. At ten, pretending to be sixteen, with the help of her sister and the musical accompaniment of her mother, she promoted her "new system" to the wealthiest families of San Francisco. In reality, as she herself admitted: "There was no system. I followed my fantasy and improvised, teaching my students anything beautiful that occurred to me." Her popularity grew, and the activity was quite profitable. Alongside her siblings, she performed in a few theatrical shows, with modest success. Not satisfied with that, she began to nurture the desire, which would accompany her throughout her life, to escape in search of a bigger world.

In Search of Pleasure

"I have never been able to understand why, if one desires to do something, they don’t do it. I never waited to do what I wanted to do. This has given me disasters and calamities, but at least it has given me the satisfaction of fulfilling my whim."

Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Budapest, Florence, Moscow... Her life was a ceaseless series of moves and new beginnings. With incredible ease, she managed to renew herself and restart many times. With her extraordinary energy, she navigated through excuses and impulsive initiatives: she lived a carefree life and despised practical matters, completely focused on her desires. One day, she lived in unbridled luxury, and the next, she was in ruin. At first, she felt physical repulsion toward the pianist who accompanied her, but an instant later, bored with domestic life, she found in him an irresistible genius and surrendered herself into his arms.

Her obsessive pursuit of pleasure, and especially her escape from frustration when she did not receive the attention she longed for or when stimuli were exhausted, prevented her from settling anywhere or forming a stable relationship. In a perpetual state of excitement, she impatiently rushed toward life: "I ran... to distract the trip and make it shorter. I invented all kinds of methods to give myself this illusion."

Men, students, artists, works of art, all the people who admired her (yielding to the flattery of her seduction), and the cities where she lived were for her wonderful and unforgettable.

"Oh, Budapest! It was in April. It was the spring of the year. [...] Oh, the music of the gypsies! It was the first call to awaken my youthful senses. How could I be surprised that such sincere music made new emotions be born in my soul? Is there any music like that of the gypsies, which rises from the very ground of Hungary?"

In Florence, we spent several weeks in ecstasy, visiting the museums, the gardens, and the olive groves. At that time, Botticelli captivated my youthful imagination. I spent entire days sitting in front of The Spring.

But above all, it was the lack of stimulation and attention that pushed her to transform reality with her fantasy and to unleash impulsiveness and indulgence. Her life was one big adventure, with the illusion of searching for a safe harbor she never truly wished to find. "Pleasure came to me—the pure and delightful pleasure—at the moment when I needed it most, for without my distractions, I would have fallen into a desperate neurasthenia. [...] I forgot my sorrow and lived in the moment that passed: I was carefree and happy."

Dance

Isadora discovered the expressive power of her body very early on. As a child, standing on the table, she entertained the family and friends by dancing to every melody she heard. Doing cartwheels around a mother engrossed in her music was just a way to get her attention. And it was precisely through showcasing her dances that she would continue, throughout her life, to attract attention.

She appeared on stage barefoot, wearing a simple white tunic that revealed her form. Without ballet shoes or routine, she decorated the stage with curtains, eliminating any element that could distract the audience from focusing solely on her. In fact, for Isadora, it was enough to unleash her emotions, practicing free and self-expressive dance. She aimed to exalt the female body through natural movements, liberating herself from the artificial positions of academic dance. "My ideals did not allow me the slightest collaboration with ballets, whose movements clashed with my sense of beauty, and whose expressions seemed mechanical and vulgar."

Her goal was to spread a new culture of dance, elevating it to the same level as other arts: as a means through which the artist expresses their spirit and creativity and is capable of forging future generations of women who are free in their spirit, movements, and sexuality. "Man must speak, then sing, and then dance. But the word is the brain, the man who thinks. Singing is emotion. And dance is the Dionysian ecstasy that sweeps everything away."

She opened schools in Germany, England, and the Soviet Union, despite opposition. She felt that it was her duty to offer the world her revolutionary ideas, and that these were fundamental for transforming society: "At the end of every performance, I made an appeal to the audience to help me find a way to give others, with my own life, the discovery I had made and that would illuminate and liberate thousands of lives."

She always wanted to feel indispensable to someone and was willing to make any sacrifice to satisfy those who flattered her, asking for her help. In 1921, the Soviet government sent her a telegram inviting her to open a school: "Only the Russian government can understand you. Come to Russia, we will give you a school." In reality, they provided only the premises; they seized the furniture and suspended the hot water service. It was a difficult time, with much misery. Isadora was surrounded by desperate parents who begged her to take care of their children to at least ensure them a roof and a hot meal. She was able to accommodate only fifty children. She felt sorrowful because she couldn't save them all and reached exhaustion in caring for those unfortunate ones.

Love

The intense need to feel special and desirable found its greatest satisfaction in the experience of love. To conquer, seduce, and give oneself to the other without limits was the only way she knew to alleviate that feeling of little personal value. Overwhelming passions, stormy loves, fateful encounters: Isadora devoted herself completely to relationships, with no half-measures. She had innumerable lovers for whom she was willing to do anything: sudden departures, love escapes with men she barely knew, sacrifices, and even humiliation. Beneath her appearance as an independent, exuberant, and self-assured

woman, desperation and her dependence on confirmation from the beloved object can be seen: "Living with him meant giving up my art, my personality; more than that, my life, perhaps my reason. Living without him was living in a state of continuous depression, tortured by jealousy."

The theater designer Gordon Craig, father of her daughter, found in Isadora the "living realization of my dreams." He kept repeating to her, "You belong to me." And she, pleased by so much adoration, endured his sudden mood swings, aggression, and jealousy attacks: "Why do you want to go to the theater and wave your arms? Why don't you stay at home sharpening my pencils?"

It was a tempestuous and symbiotic passion, often ending in dramatic arguments and jealousy scenes. "He would leave slamming the door. The noise was enough for me to sense the magnitude of the terrible catastrophe. I waited for his return, and when he didn't come back, I spent the nights crying bitterly."

The encounter with Paris Singer, heir to the sewing machine empire and father of her first child, came when she had set out to start a relationship with a millionaire who could help her open her school. "I then understood that this was my millionaire, the millionaire whom my mental waves had been seeking."

Singer also wanted her all for himself. He had fallen in love with the audacious and brave woman but could not stand her freedom. He used various strategies to bind her, showered her with wealth, and allowed her to open a school, but his oppressive presence became unbearable for Isadora, who gave herself to a new love that gave her the courage to flee.

The Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, twenty years younger, was her last great love. He was the only man she married, forced by Soviet laws. She, who knew very few words in Russian, and he, who spoke no other language, lived a sweeping passion: entwined bodies that wandered the world between banquets, drugs, alcohol, and furious arguments. After fifteen months of marriage, with the passion gone, they had nothing left to say to each other.

Love disappointments could lead her to troubling emotional and physical states: she wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, and suffered nervous breakdowns that prevented her from dancing. The only antidote was to quickly find a new love to dedicate herself to, hoping it would be reciprocated. "I couldn't work, I couldn't dance. I didn't care if I pleased the audience. I realized this situation had to end quickly. [...] And as everything we ardently desire comes, indeed, the remedy arrived. One afternoon, a young, elegant, country gentleman entered my house."

Children

Isadora, who believed in free love and defended voluntary motherhood outside of marriage, had three children with three different men: Gordon Craig, Paris Singer, and a young Italian artist. She lost all three prematurely: the two older ones in a tragic car accident when they were with their nanny, and the third, with whom she hoped to alleviate the pain of losing the first two, died of natural causes just hours after birth.

The pregnancies were difficult: the gestation period made her feel "ill" and obstructed her ambitions, her art, and her life. She did not recognize herself in the body that was changing, had different energy, and felt the need to isolate herself and not appear in public. She felt a great fear of being alone and of retreating from the gaze of all human beings... "I fought with an uncontrollable desire to flee... [...] Where? Perhaps to the depths of the black waves... My adorable body kept deforming, and I watched it with astonished eyes... Where is my ambition? Where is my fame?" Despite herself, she sometimes felt miserable and a failure.

Radically different was the experience of motherhood: the birth of her children infused Isadora with overwhelming energy, a complete satisfaction. It returned all the security and strength she felt she had lost during the pregnancy and rewarded her for the renunciations and sufferings. She felt invincible and powerful once again. "Oh, women! Why do you learn to be lawyers, painters, or sculptors, if there is this miracle? Finally, I knew the great love that surpasses the love of man. [...] Life, life, life! Where was my art? My art, and all arts. What did I care about art? I felt like a god, superior to all the artists."

She was a loving mother, attached to her children, although she often left them in the care of their aunt and the nanny to travel with new loves or present her shows.

The death of her three children profoundly marked the rest of her life. The lacerating pain of the loss, that deep sense of abandonment, created a gap that she could never overcome. It is striking that in her autobiography, she repeatedly mentions episodes of clairvoyance, premonitory dreams, and visions where the birth of her children was linked to their death, as if she were seeking a reason to confirm that she too had control over that ending which she had not chosen.

Death

On September 14, 1927, Isadora Duncan died in Nice in a rare accident: her long silk scarf got caught in the wheels of the Bugatti she was traveling in and broke her neck. She was content because she was escaping from a party in the company of her last conquest, a twenty-year-old Parisian. Mary Desti, her best friend, said that her last words were:

"Goodbye, my friends. I’m going to glory." Years later, she would deny this. According to the new version, Isadora exclaimed: "I’m going toward love!" ("Je vais à l'amour!").

A sensational death, dramatically faithful to her story, because it was for the sake of going toward love, to satisfy that unquenchable need for love, that Isadora lived relentlessly throughout her life, in constant search of someone or something that could fulfill her dreams and save her from herself and her pain.