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There exists a radical opposition between these thoughts and those that inspired The Birth of Tragedy. Art is no longer a reason for living, but a preparation for life, a necessary repose. Three menacing lines end Nietzsche's little book: "Wagner is not the prophet of the future as we might fain believe, but the interpreter and the glorifier of a past." Nietzsche had not been able to keep back these admissions. Brief and disguised as they were, he had hoped that they might not be heard, and his hope, it seems, was justified. Wagner wrote as soon as the pamphlet had appeared:
"FRIEND!—Your book is prodigious!
"Where did you learn to know me so well? Come quickly, and stay here during rehearsals until the representations.
"Yours,
"R. W.
" July 12th."
The rehearsals began in the middle of July, and Nietzsche, who did not wish to miss one of them, went, in spite of the precarious state of his health, with an impatience that astonished his sister. Two days later she received a letter: "I almost regret ever having come; up till now, everything is wretched.... On Monday I went to the rehearsal; it displeased me, I was obliged to go out."
What was happening? Frulein Nietzsche waited with great uneasiness. She was slightly reassured by a second letter: "MY DEAR GOOD SISTER,—At present things are better...." But the last sentence read strangely: "I must live very much to myself, and decline all invitations, even Wagner's. He finds that I make myself scarce." Almost immediately came the last letter: "I hope to leave: it is too senseless to stay here. I await with terror every one of these long musical evenings. Yet I stay. I can stand it no longer. I shall not be here even for the first performance ; I will go no matter where—but I want to leave; here everything is unbearable."
What had occurred? Had the mere sight of the world driven him away so soon? Nietzsche had led a very hard existence, during the past two years, "the friend of enigmas and problems." He had forgotten men: he suffered on encountering them again. A Titan, Wagner, held them captive, protected them against every enigma and too disquieting "problem"; and in this shadow they seemed satisfied. They never reflected, but repeated passionately the formulas that had been given them. Some Hegelians had come: Wagner offered himself to them as a second incarnation of their master. All the Schopenhauerians were there; they had been told that Wagner had translated into music the system of Schopenhauer. A few young people were calling themselves "idealists," "pure Germans": "My art," declared[Pg 190] Wagner, "signifies the victory of German idealism over Gallic sensualism." All, Hegelians, Schopenhauerians, pure Germans, agreed in the pride of triumph: they had succeeded. Succeeded! Nietzsche heard this extraordinary word in silence. What man, he pondered, what race ever did succeed? Not even the Greek, which was bruised in its most beautiful flights. What effort had not been in vain? So, taking his eyes off the comedy, Nietzsche examined Wagner: was this dispenser of joys in the end great enough to become uneasy in the hour of victory? No; Wagner was happy, because he had succeeded; and the satisfaction of such a man was more shocking and sadder still than that of the crowd.
But happiness, however low it be, is still happiness. An exquisite intoxication had seized the little town of Bayreuth. Nietzsche had felt and shared this intoxication; he kept the remorse and envy of it. He listened to a rehearsal: the entrance into the sacred theatre, the emotion of the public, the presence of Wagner, the darkness, the marvellous sounds, touched him. How sensible he had remained to the Wagnerian infection. He got up in haste and went out; it is the explanation of his letter: "Yesterday evening, I went to a rehearsal; it displeased me; I was obliged to go out."
A new element aggravated his trouble. He was informed definitely of the significance of the forthcoming work, Parsifal. Richard Wagner was about to declare himself a Christian. Thus, in eighteen months, Nietzsche observed two conversions: Romundt was weak and perhaps the victim of chance; but Nietzsche knew that with Wagner everything was grave, and answered to the necessities of the century. Neo-Christianity did not yet exist: Nietzsche felt it all through Parsifal. He perceived the danger run by the modern man, so uncertain of himself, and tempted by this Christian faith, which is so firm a thing, which calls, which promises and can give peace.[Pg 191] If he did not redouble his efforts to discover in himself a new "possibility of life," it was certain that he would fall back into a Christianity, cowardly like his inspiration. Then Nietzsche saw these men, whose happiness he had instinctively despised, menaced by a final collapse, and led gently, and as if by the hand, towards this collapse by the master, by the impostor who had subjugated them. Not one of them knew whither this powerful hand might not soon lead them, scarcely one of them was a Christian, but they were all on the eve of becoming Christians. How far away was that May day of 1872 in which Richard Wagner conducted, in this same Bayreuth, Schiller and Beethoven's ode to liberty and joy!
Friedrich Nietzsche saw clearly for them all: the spectacle of these unconscious lives made him feel desperate, as the sight of the world in the Middle Ages had made those mystics desperate, who had always before their eyes the accusing and bleeding image of the Christ. He would have liked to have torn these people from their torpor, to have warned them by a word, prevented them with a cry. "I ought to," he thought, "as I alone understand what is happening...." But who would have listened to him? He held his peace, he dissembled his dreadful impressions, and wished to observe without weakness or desertion the tragic solemnities.
But he could not. Soon he weakened and had to fly. "I should be insane to stay here. I await with terror each of these long musical evenings, and yet I stay. I can bear no more.... I shall go, no matter where, but I will go: here everything is torture to me...."
The heights which separate Bohemia from Franconia rise some miles from Bayreuth, and the village of Klingenbrunn, where Nietzsche retired, is situated in the forests which cover them. The crisis was brief and less[Pg 192] severe than he had dreaded. Now that he had perceived in a clearer manner the dangers of the Wagnerian art, he saw the remedy more plainly. "Religiosity," he wrote, "when it is not upheld by a clear thought, rouses disgust." He renewed his Steinabad meditations and re-affirmed the resolutions then made. He would make a clean sweep of the past; resist the seductions of metaphysics; deprive himself of art; reserve judgment; like Descartes, begin by doubting. Then, if some new security could be discovered, he would raise the new grandeur on immovable foundations.
He wandered up and down the silent forests; their severe peace was a discipline: "If we do not give firm and serene horizons to our souls like those of the woods and mountains," he wrote, "then our inner life will lose all serenity. It will be broken up like that of the men of towns; it will not know happiness and will not be able to give it." Then, all of a sudden he released the cry of his sick soul: "I shall give back to men," said he, "the serenity which is the condition of all culture. And the simplicity. Serenity, Simplicity, Greatness!"
