Newspapers reported that the lady had a gun when she came to make peace with her love. Sounds strange? This story is strange, perhaps because it is true. The star of the early 20th century, the Warsaw actress Maria Visnovskaya was the dizzying dream woman for many a European nobleman, and was famous for her extravagant ways. "Modern" was the high fashion style of the moment. The notion of modernship went far beyond the style. It was an overall idea of adapting life to the laws of beauty. Sometimes, adaptions of this kind are lethal.