Early in 1913, and again in 1914, Max Weber travelled to Ascona, in fulfilment of a promise of legal assistance previously given to Frieda Schloffer-Gross, wife of Otto Gross. As can be seen in Sam Whimster's essay and Max Weber's letters from Ascona (see above), this friend of both Max and Marianne sorely needed some support in her struggle for the custody of her son Peter. And so it might seem purely coincidental that Max Weber found himself stranded for several weeks in these "realms of the fabulous".¹ This German scholar found himself among dropouts, philosophers of life, and existential reformers; among people who had, either deliberately or out of necessity, placed themselves in opposition to the bourgeois order and had broken with it.