In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

OCEAN LINERS 169
successful commercial venture in oceanic travel." As a result of growing
demand for transatlantic conveyance, as well as growing impatience on
the part of passengers, the market for ocean liners has become unstable
(Chronik, 73). Companies such as the Panama Pacific Line and the
Munson Steamship Lines react, in their advertisements, by presenting the
tradeoff involved in steamship travel-loss of time versus enjoyment of
dreamlike luxury-as an advantage: "Finest Ships-Fastest Time," or
"Largest and Fastest Ships in the Service." But against the background
of fast-paced modern life [see Present vs. Past], ocean liners are widely
perceived as stubborn relics of the past. Even a traveler as unhurried as
the Berlin celebrity Harry Graf Kessler cannot help being slightly disappointed
by his voyage from Genoa to Barcelona on the Principessa
Mafalda, one of the ships that Carlos Gardel prefers for his travels
between Argentina and Spain: "In the morning, went to the Navigazione
Generale, Spanish Consulate, etc., in a mad rush. Midday, beginning at
twelve o'clock, on the South American ocean liner ... the Principessa
Mafalda. A lovely ten-thousand-ton ship, really pleasant and even luxurious
(though the luxury is somewhat faded), furnished in sober Louis
XVI style. Spacious, airy white sleeping cabins. Excellent food. Only a
few passengers in the first-class salon" (470). Much more outspoken
than Graf Kessler is the French novelist Paul Morand, who, after a
voyage around the world, is obsessed with the idea that the earth's finite
surface has no more secrets to be discovered [see Polarities, Center =
Periphery (Infinitude)]: "To the long list of things that make existence
unbearable, I add the fact that we are forced to live crowded together on
a globe of which three-quarters is occupied, alas, by water (which could
just as well have been found in the air or under the ground). We will
succumb in the end; we will waste our lives in this locked compartment,
sealed up in the economy class of this little sphere lost in space. For the
earth is astonishingly small; only boats permit us to doubt this smallness,
because they still move so slowly. Someday soon, we will realize that the
steamship companies have deceived us" (11).
Not even a passage across the Pacific seems exciting to Morand:
"Twelve days in a white fog, which becomes lilac toward evening-impenetrable,
with no stars to mark our position ... A few meters of sea
on either side, and one horizontal abyss after another. Never saw another
ship" (27). What impresses him, however, is the vertical dimension, the
depth of the sea, which he experiences as a constant threat-as if only