about to be sealed within a tomb. Horrified by the imagery of their impending immurement, Nobel immediately developed a deep-rooted fear that he, too, was destined to die while sentient and trapped. To address his anxiety, Nobel first carried a crowbar on his person. He next relied on a ‘life-signalling’ coffin of his own design.fn6 In the end, Nobel trusted on the certainty of cremation. It was only on realising he was now at risk for being burned alive, as opposed to buried alive, that a cautious Nobel also stipulated that his ‘veins shall be opened’ prior to his cremation (i.e., exsanguination by way of phlebotomy).
Years later, Nobel was to die suddenly in San Remo, Italy. As his will, the provisions of which were unknown to others, was on deposit in a private Swedish bank, it took three days before his executors learned of his morbid last wishes. By then, Nobel’s corpse had been embalmed, a standard funerary practice in Italy during the 1890s and a process that, by good fortune, begins with bleeding the veins of the deceased.
Figure 2. The Nobel Family. Immanuel Nobel (top left), Andriette Nobel (top right), and the Nobel brothers: Robert, Alfred, Ludvig, and baby Emil (bottom, clockwise from top).
Sadly, even Nobel had recognised he was troubled throughout his life by more than an operatic death scene. Though capable of congenial social interactions and outright levity in the right company, Nobel had lived a lonely existence without a lifelong partner or children. It was a lament he would frequently share, even in letters to strangers, as evidenced by the following admission:
At the age of 54, when one is completely alone in the world, and shown consideration by nobody except a paid servant, one’s thoughts become gloomy indeed.
With bitter insight, Nobel accepted his unwanted isolation as central to his melancholic outlook and the frequent episodes of depression that were particularly prevalent in his middle years. Nobel would refer to these periods of despair as visits from the ‘spirits of Niflheim’, the cold and misty afterworld in Nordic mythology and the location of Hel, to where those who failed to die a heroic death were banished.
Remarkably, Nobel failed to consider the root cause of his isolation, which was directly attributable to the loss of the many family members and colleagues who had died sudden violent deaths (i.e., were blown to smithereens) as a result of their association with him. In 1856, the Crimean War had ended unfavourably for Russia, in no small part due to the failure of Immanuel’s ineffectual mines to cut off crucial enemy shipping lanes in the Baltic Sea. The financial circumstances of the Nobel family declined accordingly. After retreating hastily to Stockholm with only limited resources, Alfred and his father continued their experiments with nitroglycerine. On 3 September 1864, five individuals died in a horrific explosion; among the casualties was Emil Nobel, Alfred’s younger brother. To compound the tragedy, a grieving Immanuel suffered a debilitating stroke just one month later. Yet within two months of Emil’s death, Alfred was defiantly exporting the world’s first source of industrial-grade nitroglycerine. Due to the concerns of government officials about the dangers of the unstable compound, its preparation was restricted to a barge anchored on a lake located beyond Stockholm’s city limits. Despite such safety measures, a distressing loss of lives would continue to accompany the commercial production of nitroglycerine, which Nobel quickly extended by establishing factories throughout Europe. Although Nobel refused to express remorse in public (possibly on the advice of his lawyers), the deaths of so many of his employees and innocent bystanders would have a lingering impact on his sensitive disposition.fn7
Nobel’s poor physical health would also constantly undermine his fragile temperament. As a fragile and sickly child, Nobel frequented health spas while still in his late teens. Troubled by chronic indigestion, he was once diagnosed with scurvy, and for a period of months consumed only horseradish and grape juice. In his late forties, Nobel developed severe migraine headaches, and then, more seriously, the onset of paroxysmal spasms of chest pain. Though the latter symptoms were initially assumed to be hysterical in nature, he was eventually diagnosed as suffering from a debilitating form of angina pectoris. As he aged, his attacks worsened. While visiting Paris in October 1896 Nobel had a particularly severe episode. As he drolly wrote, Within two months of returning to his winter residence in San Remo, Italy, Nobel suffered a catastrophic cerebral haemorrhage. On 10 December 1896, agitated, semi-paralysed and attended only by Italian servants unable to comprehend his last words, which were uttered in Swedish, Nobel died as he had feared, trapped within his body, frightened and alone.
Figure 3. Alfred Nobel.
Isn’t it the irony of fate that I have been prescribed nitroglycerine to be taken internally! They call it Trinitrin, so as not to scare the chemist and the public.fn8
The challenge of implementing Nobel’s will fell to his two designated executors.
As Executors of my testamentary dispositions, I hereby appoint Mr Ragnar Sohlman, resident at Bofors, Värmland, and Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, 31 Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, and at Bengtsfors near Uddevalla. To compensate for their pains and attention, I grant to Mr Ragnar Sohlman, who will presumably have to devote most time to this matter, One Hundred Thousand Crowns, and to Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, Fifty Thousand Crowns.
Nobel had only recently met Rudolf Lilljeqvist, a Swedish civil engineer, in May of 1895. Their initial discussions had revolved around the electrolytic decomposition of salt. Nobel and Lilljeqvist developed an instant rapport, likely due to a shared antipathy towards lawyers.fn9 Years of litigation involving alleged patent infringements, charges of industrial espionage, and a series of wrongful death lawsuits had left Nobel with a fierce aversion to those in the legal profession. Lilljeqvist was equally wary, a victim of incompetent lawyers who had undermined his previous efforts to court potential investors. After only three months of congenial negotiations, conducted without legal advice, Nobel agreed to fund Lilljeqvist’s proposal to establish an electrochemical plant in Bengtsfors, a village in north-west Sweden. Nobel had obviously been deeply impressed with Lilljeqvist, and despite their brief acquaintance, had developed an immediate confidence in his new partner’s acumen and ethical principles.
Although Lilljeqvist subsequently declined Nobel’s invitation to take up a well-paid managerial position at a weapons foundry (AB Bofors, see here), the two men engaged in a second collaboration just prior to Nobel’s death. The impetus was the unpredictable and explosive nature of nitroglycerine at temperatures higher than 180 degrees Celsius. As the chemical production of nitroglycerine created heat, the temperature of the nitration vats within Nobel’s factories required careful monitoring. In practical terms, this meant that one employee was assigned the task of staring at a thermometer throughout the production process. Not surprisingly, the hypnotic nature of the activity frequently induced sleep, and lethal gaffes were prevalent.
In an effort to reduce fatalities, Nobel had first mandated that the relevant workers must complete their shifts without shoes and wearing only a single sock. The principle was simple: Nobel knew from the privations of his early childhood that it was impossible to fall asleep if one foot was colder than the other. It was only upon learning that this prescription contravened nascent employee safety regulations that Nobel rescinded the directive. To gain a first-hand impression of the inherent challenge, Nobel then joined his own labour force. Struggling to stay alert during one shift, an exhausted Nobel realised that it would require a high degree of wakefulness for a worker to remain upright while seated on an unstable surface; should a worker still manage