The Vertigo Years

by Philipp Blom

  63 ‘material it is in itself’: Adolf Loos, Ins Leere gesprochen, Paris/Zurich, 1921, 136.

  63 ‘be entirely different’: ibid., 159.

  64 ‘stuck in the past’: Adolf Loos, Ornament und Verbrechen, in Ulrich Conrads, Programme und Manifeste zur Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts, Braunschweig, 1981, 16.

  64 ‘can be beautiful’: Otto Wagner, Die Baukunst unserer Zeit, Vienna, 1914, 44.

  69 ‘majority in parliament’: Freud to Fleiss, 11 March 1902, Freud-Fleiss, 501-2.

  70 ‘for the apocalypse’: Karl Kraus, in Die Fackel, 10 July 1914.

  4. 1903: A Strange Luminescence

  75 ‘It was over’: Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg, 297-8, transl. PB.

  76 ‘faint, fairy lights’: Marie Curie, Autobiographical Notes, in Pierre Curie, translated by C. & V. Kellog, New York, 1923, 186-7.

  77 ‘origin of one of us’: quoted in Rosalynd Pflaum, Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and Her World, Doubleday, New York: Macmillan, 1989, 74.

  78 ‘the new discoveries’: Pierre Curie, Nobel Prize lecture, in Nobel Lectures, ‘Physics 1901-2’, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1967, 74.

  78 ‘companion of my life’: quoted in Vincent Cronin, Paris on the Eve, London: HarperCollins, 1989, 222.

  81 ‘sixth place of decimals’: quoted in Teich and Porter, 245.

  84 ‘constitutes true duration’: Henri Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, Paris: Daus, 1909, 51.

  84 ‘man who runs’: Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, London: Allea, 1911, 208-9.

  84 ‘itself varnished too’: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, London, 1902, 89.

  85 ‘points of view’: José Ortega y Gasset, ‘Adám en el Paraiso’, in Obras Completas, 1910, I, 471. Quoted in Kern, Culture of Space and Time, 151.

  86 ‘and so forth’: Patrick Brantlinger, in Teich and Porter, 108.

  87 ‘boulevard Montmartre, Paris’: Le Matin, 13 March 1910.

  88 ‘this thing you know’: quoted in Simon, Dark Light, 237.

  88 ‘a legal crime’: ibid., 238-9.

  89 ‘to these things’: Wells, A World Set Free, London, 1914, 16.

  90 ‘fan-like humped body’: Wells, The War in the Air, London, 1898, 47.

  91 ‘What a career’: Le Figaro, 6 November 1906.

  91 ‘strength or certainty’: quoted in Conrad, Modern Times, 83.

  5. 1904: His Majesty and Mister Morel

  92 ‘poured into the village’: quoted in John Bierman, Dark Safari: The Life behind the Legend of Henry Morton Stanley, New York, 1990, 281.

  93 ‘drilled into soldierhood’: Casement and O’Sullivan, 68ff.

  93 ‘given to me’: ibid., 72.

  95 ‘with passionate emphasis’: Morel et al., E. D. Morel’s History, 28-9.

  96 ‘King for a croniman’: ibid., 41-2.

  97 ‘production of india-rubber’: Casement, 87.

  98 ‘in that institution’: ibid., 99.

  98 ‘poor, poor people’: Casement and O’Sullivan, 17.

  99 ‘Infamous shameful system’: ibid., 263.

  100 ‘more than 5 years’: John Harris, unpublished MS, quoted in Louis ‘Sir John Harris’, 833.

  102 ‘Boers to do it’: Der Floh, 8 June 1902, 2.

  102 ‘people of heroes’: Arbeiterzeitung, 7 June 1902, 1.

  102 ‘entirely in ... [the Jews’] hands’: quoted after Judd and Surridge, 242.

  103 ‘white man’s war’: quoted after Judd and Surridge, 154.

  103 ‘yes, in capacity’: Webb, 232.

  104 ‘mighty German Kaiser’: Bundesarchiv Potsdam, Akten des Reichskolonialamtes, RKA, 10.01 2089, Bl. 23, MS copy of the proclamation to the Herero and the additional order to the Kaiserliche Schutztruppe, 2 October 1904.

  105 ‘killed them with bayonets’: J. De Bruijn and H. Colijn, De slag om Tjakra Negara. Een verslag in drie brieven. Amsterdam, VI uitgeverij, 1998, 34.

  106 ‘old wives’ tales’: quoted after Hochschild, 240.

  106 ‘seen in the Congo’: ibid., 238.

  107 ‘too large a subject’: ibid., 247.

  108 ‘sacrifices in the Congo’: ibid., 259.

  110 ‘develop his estate’: Joseph Chamberlain, quoted in J. L. Gavin and Julian Amery, The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, London, 1932-51, I, 27.

  112 ‘Cowboys and Indians’ were introduced: Bernard Potter, 66.

  114 ‘lowest order of humanity’: Plakate in Frankfurt, 1880-1914, Exhibition, Historisches Museum Frankfurt, 1986.

  114 ‘youth was in it’: Loti, Aziyadé, 7.

  115 ‘more individual freedom’: Spitzemberg, 434.

  116 was specifically colonial: Sauvage, Eine Reise von Jean Sauvage, Oberlehrer, Berlin, 1900, 65.

  118 ‘now and then’: Bely, 101.

  120 ‘could deepy admire’: quoted after Hochschild, 289.

  121 ‘was the Congo’: ibid., 287.

  6. 1905: In All Fury

  122 ‘among them children’: Witte, 402.

  124 ‘realised by experience’: quoted in Figes, Tragedy, 95.

  125 ‘that I know of’: quoted in Figes, Tragedy, 66.

  126 ‘more obstinate character’: quoted in Engel, 82.

  127 ‘as lavatory attendants’: quoted in Figes, Tragedy, 113.

  127 ‘a common business’: M. B., ‘Peterburgskie trushchoby’, 31 October 1913. Quoted in Neuberger, Hooliganism: Crime, Culture and Power in St Petersburg, 1900-1914, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

  127 ‘resembled human beings’: Svirskii, ‘Peterburgskie khuligany’, 250. Quoted in Neuberger, Hooliganism.

  128 ‘revolution will break out’: Witte, 397.

  128 ‘noted for free thinking’: quoted after Harcave, 11.

  130 ‘governor-general of Finland’: Witte, 372.

  130 ‘than of men’: ibid., 364.

  130 ‘promoted his advancement’: ibid., 365.

  130 ‘a rough manner’: ibid., 98-9.

  131 ‘Russia is happy’: ibid., 374.

  131 ‘against the Jews’: ibid., 377.

  131 ‘become extreme revolutionaries’: ibid., 379.

  131 ‘buy his way out’: ibid., 378.

  133 ‘exterminate our enemies’: Piotr Zaichnevsky, quoted after Figes, Tragedy, 132.

  135 ‘about the navy’: Witte, 382.

  135 ‘certain of victory’: ibid., 385.

  136 ‘beat them with icons’: Figes, People’s Tragedy, 170.

  136 ‘the highest authority’: ibid., 170.

  137 ‘let us build jails’: ibid., 173.

  138 ‘powers that be’: A. M. Buiko, quoted after Salisbury, Black Snow, 105.

  140 ‘purpose in going’: quoted in Salisbury, Black Snow, 120.

  141 ‘open fire on us’: quoted in Salisbury, Black Snow, 121.

  141 ‘through his teeth’: quoted in Figes, People’s Tragedy, 177.

  142 ‘of innocent blood’: ibid., 127.

  142 ‘pogromshchik by conviction’: Witte, 404.

  143 ‘are absolutely terrified’: quoted after Salisbury, Black Snow, 130-1.

  143 ‘to enact laws’: Witte, 468.

  146 ‘of whatever variety’: ibid., 479.

  146 ‘his personal enemies’: ibid., 480, 481.

  147 ‘everyone was asking for’: quoted in Figes, 191.

  147 ‘shipping transport grease’: Salisbury, Black Snow, 174.

  148 settling of accounts began: ibid., 167.

  148 ‘to be preserved’: quoted in Salisbury, 166-7.

  150 ‘and again dispersed’: Bely, 51.

  150 ‘oceans of blood’: ibid., 65.

  152 ‘scroll spells Death’: quoted in Salisbury, Black Snow, 193.

  152 ‘generally joyless existence’: Zdanevich and Larionov, ‘Why We Paint Ourselves’, 83. Quoted in Neuberger, Hooliganism.

  152 ‘to rearrange life’: quoted in Vladimir Markov, Russian Futurism, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968, 9.

  152 ‘all yours, yours’: Livshits, T
he One and a Half-Eyed Archer, 42. Quoted in Neuberger, Hoolganism.

  153 ‘will of the Board’: Bryusov, ‘Republic of the Southern Cross’, in The Republic of the Southern Cross, and other stories, G. Constable, London, 1918.

  154 ‘and bury him’: Andreyev, 41.

  154 ‘way any longer’: Witte, 474.

  7. 1906: Dreadnought and Anxiety

  155 ‘wine and of flowers’: Manchester Guardian, 12 February 1906, 1.

  156 ‘as the English’: quoted in Massie, 151.

  157 ‘habitually called “home”’: ibid., 26.

  157 ‘got his balance’: ibid., 28.

  157 ‘of the ladies’: ibid., 153-4.

  158 ‘for the navy’: ibid., 157.

  159 ‘on the water’: ibid., 162.

  159 ‘equal to English’: ibid., 166.

  160 ‘present time is England’: ibid., 172.

  161 ‘fainted at the sight’: ibid., 410.

  161 ‘the revolver tracks’: ibid., 399.

  161 ‘takes four years’: ibid., 406.

  163 ‘be pea shooters’: ibid., 471.

  163 ‘would be HELL’: ibid., 472.

  164 ‘were considered imbeciles’: Zeldin, Conflicts in French Society, 896.

  164 ‘of male pride’: ibid., 881.

  165 ‘not a man’: ibid., 898.

  165 ‘an effiminate man’: Marcel Proust, Correspondance, 6-8 November 1920, ed. Philip Kolt, Paris, 1970.

  166 ‘termination of the affair’: Wythe Williams, The Tiger of France: Conversations with Clemenceau, New York: Ovell, Sloan and Pearce, 1949, 82.

  166 ‘ideal of justice’: quoted by Richard Cohen, By the Sword, New York: Random House, 2002, 183.

  167 ‘reservist beer mugs’: C. Berg and U. Hermann, Industriegesellschaft und Kulturkrise, Munich, 1991, 13.

  167 ‘follow orders immediately’: H. F. Kahle, Grundzüge einer evangelischen Volkserziehung, Breslau, 1890.

  168 ‘and other Russians’: Hans Kohn ‘Rückblick auf eine gemeinsame Jugend’, in Tramer ed., Robert Weltsch, Tel Aviv, 1961, 115.

  168 ‘Dr. von Staat’: Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, Frankfurt/M, 1983, 247.

  170 by his cabinet: Clark, Wilhelm II, 162.

  170 ‘ordered them to do so’: ibid., 163.

  171 ‘askance at a German’: ibid., 169.

  171 ‘holds a dagger’: Daily Telegraph, 28 October 1908.

  171 ‘this is a madhouse’: Spitzemberg, 489.

  172 ‘hitherto been unquestioned’: quoted after Clark, Wilhelm II, 172-3.

  172 ‘made in public’: ibid., 167.

  172 ‘routine of life’: quoted in Massie, 666.

  172 ‘out of the question’: ibid., 669.

  173 ‘my only bosom friend’: ibid., 667.

  173 ‘radiance in my life’: ibid., 667.

  173 ‘arm around him’: Witte, 457.

  173 ‘would not suffer it’: quoted in Massie, 669.

  174 ‘his good nose’: quoted in Massie, 131.

  175 ‘with your peculiarities’: quoted in Massie, 672.

  176 ‘in the dark’: Die Zukunft, 17 November 1906.

  176 ‘already warm enough’: ibid., 13 April 1907.

  178 ‘of such sinners’: Spitzemberg, 472.

  178 ‘to the music’: quoted after Massie, 690.

  179 ‘a third one’: Magnus Hirschfeld, Berlins drittes Geschlecht, Berlin, 1904, 6.

  179 ‘profound psychological shock’: ibid., 39.

  180 ‘less than fifteen times’: quoted in Caroline Daley, ‘Sandow, the Strongman of Eugenics’, Australian Historical Studies, 120, 2, 234.

  181 ‘see his passport’: quoted in Massie, 630.

  181 ‘subject of the Kaiser’: quoted in Massie, 637.

  182 ‘passage of the seas’: Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands, London, 1903, 90.

  182 ‘the English shores’: quoted in Massie, 633.

  184 ‘something of beauty’: Nordau, Degeneration, 7.

  184 ‘and frizzy images’: ibid., 228.

  184 ‘the lowest level’: ibid., 119-22.

  185 ‘under his thumbs’: ibid., 544, 556-7.

  186 ‘their own guilt’: Nordau, Sandow Paper, 1:20.

  186 ‘proclaim their Jewishness’: Nordau, Jüdische Turnerzeitung, 1900, II, 12.

  186 ‘diseased organic processes’: Nordau, Degeneration, 416.

  188 ‘become entirely superfluous’: Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, 109-10.

  188 ‘canon of masculinity’: ibid., 122.

  8. 1907: Dreams and Visions

  189 ‘rise inside you’: Ernst Stadler, Dichtungen, ed. K. L. Schneider, 2 vols. (Hamburg, 1954), vol. I, 120; a poem from around 1910.

  192 ‘absolute masculine activity’: Mayreder, 12.

  192 ‘they were raped’: Lida Gustava Heymann, ‘Weiblicher Pazifismus’, in Gisela Brinker-Gabler (ed.), Frauen gegen den Krieg, Frankfurt/M, 1980, 65.

  193 ‘like bloody snowflakes’: Suttner, Maschinenzeitalter, 54.

  194 ‘in their development’: quoted in Geiss, Julikrise und Kriegsausbruch 1914, Hannover, 1963, nos. 319, 346.

  194 ‘the whole world’: quoted in Tuchman, 237.

  195 ‘aegis of Russia’: ibid., 257-8.

  195 ‘our time, is enormous’: Andrew D. White, Autobiography, New York, 1922, 260.

  196 ‘exhaustion and ruin’: quoted in Tuchman, 258.

  196 ‘been carfully eliminated’: ibid., 261.

  196 ‘chilled to the bone’: ibid., 264.

  199 ‘all this novelty’: Franziska von Reventlow, Herrn Dames Aufzeichnungen, in Gesammelte Werke, Munich, 1925, 194.

  200 ‘made of glass’: ibid.

  200 ‘in the middle’: ibid.

  201 ‘towards the heavens’: Münchner Post, 2 August 1888.

  204 ‘coloured by it’: Martin Buber, Drei Reden über das Judentum, Frankfurt/M, 1911, 12-13.

  208 ‘a clammy hell’: Schorske, Vienna, 251.

  209 ‘a cotswold ewe’: quoted in Peter Washington, Blavatsky, 41.

  211 ‘Thousand kisses, darling’: ibid., 123.

  211 ‘and political tendencies’: Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex, London, 1908, 114-15.

  212 ‘wearer [and] sex maniac’: George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, London, 1937.

  215 ‘extra-sensory capabilities’: quoted in Wolfgang G. Vögele, Der andere Rudolf Steiner. Augenzeugenberichte, Interviews, Karikaturen, Dornach, 2005, 49ff.

  215 was ‘murdering souls’: Ellen Key, Das Jahrhurdert des Kindes, Berlin, 1908, 124.

  9. 1908: Ladies with Rocks

  220 ‘anywhere in the world’: quoted in Andrew Rosen, Rise up,Women!, 104-5.

  220 ‘Simply indifferent’: ibid., 105.

  220 ‘to human society’: ibid., 97.

  222 ‘is always untidy’: Saltonstall, quoted in Liddington, 87-8, 101-2.

  222 ‘up in poverty’: quoted in Liddington and Norris, 32.

  223 ‘communal outdoor closets’: Liddington, 30-1.

  224 ‘silently, Mother’s side’: ibid., 34.

  225 ‘manly or just’: ibid., 151.

  225 ‘freedom really means’: ibid., 48.

  225 ‘bear the consequences’: ibid., 49.

  226 ‘matter so much’: ibid., 87.

  227 ‘barrage of press cuttings’: ibid., 48.

  229 ‘name was mud’: ibid., 241.

  229 ‘by Big Ben’: ibid., 238.

  229 ‘Signed, Leonora Cohen’: ibid, 139.

  233 ‘and the cooking’: quoted after Stites, Women’s Liberation Movement, 208-9.

  234 ‘for me to do’: ibid., 231-2.

  237 ‘its very foundations’: Anita Augspurg, Ehe?: Zur Reform der sexuellen Moral, Berlin, Internationale Verlagsgesellschaft, 1911, 19.

  237 ‘and the family’: quoted in Allen, 53.

  238 ‘a men’s state’: Heymann and Augspurg, 36.

  238 ‘consternation in Munich’: ibid., 45.

  239 ‘the only
option’: quoted in Christiane Henke, Anita Augspurg, Reinbeck, 2000, 58.

  239 ‘your husband’s signature’: Anita Augspurg, ‘Ein typischer Fall der Gegenwart’, in: Zeitschrift für Frauenstimmrecht, 1905, 81.

  239 ‘on all women’: Anita Augspurg, ‘Sittlichkeit und Rechtsschutz’, in Die Zeit, 469, 1903, 312.

  239 ‘destroying our race’: Anita Augspurg, Ehe?, 19.

  240 ‘chance of success’: Bebel, Frau im Sozialismus, 35.

  241 ‘of stupidity begins’: ibid, 2.

  241 ‘our sexual misery’: Grete Meisel-Hess, Die sexuelle Krise, 397; transl. Harriet Anderson, Utopian Feminism, New Haven, 1992, 182.

  241 ‘of this society’: ibid., 182-4.

  243 ‘of former circumstances’: ibid., 103.

  243 ‘to normative violence’: Mayreder, 90.

  243 ‘first social order’: ibid., 109-10.

  243 ‘canon of masculinity’: ibid., 122.

  243 ‘they are supposed to be’: ibid., 199.

  243 ‘influences are on the increase’: ibid., 105.

  243 ‘destruction of masculinity’: ibid., 106.

  243 ‘nervous exhaustion’: ibid., 118.

  245 ‘not as individuals’: Otto Weininger, Geschlecht und Charakter, Vienna, 1923, 402.

  245 ‘most of them puny-looking’: Stites, Women’s Liberation, 208.

  10. 1909: The Cult of the Fast Machine

  255 ‘albatross with his airplanes’: Uzanne, La Locomotion, 244, translation in Kern, Culture of Time and Space, 128.

  255 around the turn of the century: Kern, Culture of Time and Space, 110.

  256 ‘out of phase with his own’: Mirbeau, La 628 E-8, 7, translation in Kern, Culture of Time and Space, 113.

  256 to drive around the globe: Deutsche Zeitung, Nr. 46, 21 March 1902, 1.

  257 new automobile fad, le camping: Deutsche Revue, July 1912, July 1910, July 1906.

  259 ‘fails to evoke’: quoted after Kern, Culture of Time and Space, 118.

  260 ‘grown men points’: H. G. Wells, Selected Short Stories, London, 1927, 86.

  260 ‘Anaemic cockneymen’: ibid., 105.

  260 ‘a minute will reverse’: T. S. Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’.

  261 ‘crushed under the wheels’: Vladimir Mayakovsky, originally published in Nov’, 16 November 1914; here translated by Helen Segall in The Ardis Anthology of Russian Futurism, ed. Carl Proffer and Ellendea Proffer, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1980, 187-8.