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"I return home; no tailor. I read very comfortably a dissertation on the Eudocia, a little distracted from time to time by a troublesome though distant noise. At last I hear the sound of knocking at the old iron grille, which is closed ..."
It was the tailor; Nietzsche tried on the suit, which fitted him well; he thanked the journeyman, who, however, stayed on, and asked to be paid. Nietzsche, being short of money, was of another opinion; the journeyman repeated his demand, Nietzsche reiterated his refusal; the journeyman would not yield, went off with the suit, and Nietzsche, left abashed in his room, considered with displeasure a black frock-coat, greatly doubting whether it would "do for Richard." Finally he put it on again:
"Outside the rain is falling in torrents. A quarter past eight! At half past Windisch is to meet me at the Caf zum Theater. I precipitate myself into the dark and rainy night, I too a poor man, all in black, without a dress coat, but in the most romantic of humours. Fortune favours me; there is something mysterious and unusual in the very aspect of the streets on this night of snow.
"We enter the very comfortable parlour of the Brockhaus's; there is no one there but the closest relations of the family, and we two. I am introduced to Richard, to whom I express my veneration in a few words; he asks me very minutely how I became a faithful disciple[Pg 66] of his music, bursts out in invectives against all the productions of his work, those of Munich, which are admirable, alone excepted; and gibes of the orchestra conductors who counsel paternally: 'Now, if you please, a little passion, gentlemen, a little more passion, my friends!' He imitates the accent of Leipsic very well.
"How I would like to give you an idea of the pleasures of the evening, of our enjoyments, which have been so lively, so peculiar, were it not that even to-day I have not yet recovered my old equilibrium, and cannot do better than tell you as I chatter along a 'fairy tale.' Afterwards, before dinner, Wagner played all the principal passages from the Meistersinger; he himself imitated all the voices: I can leave you to imagine that much was lost. As a talker he is incredibly swift and animated, and his abundance and humour are enough to convulse with gaiety a circle of intimates such as we were. Between whiles I had a long conversation with him about Schopenhauer. Ah, you wall understand what a joy it was for me to hear him speak with an indescribable warmth, explaining what he owes to our Schopenhauer, and telling me that Schopenhauer, alone among the philosophers, understood the essence of music. Then he wanted to know what is the present attitude of the philosophers with regard to Schopenhauer; he laughed very heartily at the Congress of Philosophers at Prague, and spoke of philosophical domesticity. Afterwards he read us a fragment of his Memoirs, which he is now writing, a scene from his student-life at Leipsic, overwhelmingly funny, of which I cannot think even now without laughing. His mind is amazingly supple and witty.
"At last, as we were preparing to leave, Windisch and I, he gave me a very warm handshake, and invited me, in the most friendly fashion, to pay him a visit, to talk of music and philosophy. He also entrusted me with the[Pg 67] mission of making his music known to his sister and his parents: a mission which I shall discharge with enthusiasm. I will write you of the evening at greater length when I am able to review it from a little further off, and more objectively. To-day, a cordial greeting and, for your health, my best wishes."
That day of calm appreciation, which Nietzsche was waiting for, did not come. He had come in contact with a godlike man. He had felt the shock of genius, and his soul remained shaken by it. He studied the theoretical writings of Wagner, which he had hitherto neglected, and meditated seriously on the idea of the unique work of art which was to be a synthesis of the scattered beauties of poetry, the plastic arts, and harmony. He saw the German spirit renovated through the Wagnerian ideal, and his swift mind went off in that direction.
Ritschl said to him one day: "I am going to surprise you. Would you like to be appointed a Professor in the University of Basle?" Nietzsche's surprise was, in fact, extreme. He was in his twenty-fourth year, and had not obtained his final degrees. The astonishing proposition had to be repeated to him Ritschl explained that he had received a letter from Basle; he was asked what sort of man was Herr Friedrich Nietzsche, author of the fine essays published in the Rheinisches Museum; could he be entrusted with a Chair of Philology? Ritschl had answered that Herr Friedrich Nietzsche was a young man who had ability enough to do anything he chose to do. He had even dared to write that Herr Nietzsche had genius. The matter, though suspended for the moment, had already gone pretty far.
Nietzsche listened to the news with infinite anxiety. It made him proud and yet left him broken-hearted. The[Pg 68] whole year of liberty which he had thought to be still before him suddenly vanished, and with it his projects of study, of vast reading, of travel. He was losing a happy life swollen with dreams. How could he reject so flattering an offer? He had, it appears, contrary to all good sense, a certain hesitation against which Ritschl had to fight. The old savant felt a real tenderness for this singular pupil of his, this sagacious philologist, metaphysician and poet; he loved him and believed in him. But he had one anxiety: he feared lest Nietzsche, under the incessant solicitation of instincts almost too numerous and too fine, should disperse his energy on too many objects and waste his gifts. For four years he had been iterating in his ears the same counsel: Restrict yourself in order to be strong; and he now repeated it in pressing terms. Nietzsche understood, and gave way. He wrote at once to Erwin Rohde: "As to our Parisian voyage, think of it no longer; it is certain that I am to be appointed to this Professorship at Basle; I who wished to study Chemistry! Henceforward I must learn how to renounce. Down there how much alone I shall be—without a friend whose thought resounds to mine like beautiful thirds, minor or major!"
He obtained his final diploma without examination, in consideration of his past performances and of the unique circumstance. The professors of Leipsic did not like the notion of examining their colleague of Basle.
Friedrich Nietzsche remained some weeks at Naumburg with his own people. The family were full of joy and pride: so young and a University professor! "What great matter is it?" retorted Nietzsche impatiently; "there is an usher the more in the world, that is all!" On April 13th he writes to his friend Gersdorff:
"Here I am at the last term, the last evening that I shall spend beside my hearth; to-morrow morning I[Pg 69] strike out into the great world; I enter a profession which is new to me, in an atmosphere heavy and oppressive with duties and obligations. Once more I must say adieu: the golden time in which one's activities are free and unfettered; in which every instant is sovereign; in which art and the world are spread out before our eyes as a pure spectacle in which we hardly participate—that time is past beyond recall. Now begins the reign of the harsh goddess of daily duty. Bemooster Bursche zieh? ich aus. ... You know that poignant student-song. Yes, yes! now comes my turn to be a philistine!
"One day or another, here or there, the saying always comes true. Offices and dignities are not to be accepted with impunity. The whole thing is to know whether the chains which you are forced to carry are of iron or of thread. And I still have courage enough to break some link on occasion, and to risk some plunge or other into the perilous life. Of the compulsory gibbosity of the professor I do not as yet discern in myself any trace. To become a philistine, a man of the crowd, —Zeus and the Muses preserve me from such a fate! Moreover, I find it hard to see how I could contrive to become what I am not. I am more afraid of another kind of philistinism, the professional species. It is only too natural that a daily task, an incessant concentration on certain facts and certain problems, should hang like a weight on the free sensibility of the mind, and strike at the roots of the philosophic sense. But I imagine that I can confront this peril more calmly than most philologists: philosophical seriousness is too deeply rooted in me: the true and essential problems of life and thought have been too clearly revealed to me by the great mystagogue Schopenhauer to permit me to be ever guilty of shameful treachery to the 'Idea.' To vivify my science with this new blood; to communicate to my hearers that Schopenhauerian earnestness[Pg 70] which glitters on the brow of that sublime thinker—such is my desire, my audacious hope: I want to be more than a pedagogue to honest savants. I am thinking of the duties of the masters of our time; I look forward, and my mind is filled with the thought of that next generation which follows at our heels. Since we must endure life, let us at least endeavour so to use it as to give it some worth in the eyes of others when we are happily delivered from it."
