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On this occasion, too, he turned away from his task, shunning harsh affirmations. The publisher Fritsch consented, on the condition that he received pecuniary aid, to publish a second edition of the Origin of Tragedy, The Dawn of Day, and The Gay Science. This had long been one of Nietzsche's desires: he wished to add prefaces to these old works, to touch them up, and perhaps to add to them. He undertook this new work and became absorbed in it.
Instead of going to Corsica he returned to the Genoese coast, to Ruta, not far from Rapallo, above Portofino, which thrusts its wooded crest out into the sea. Again he found the walks and familiar places in which Zarathustra had spoken to him. How sad he had then been! He had just lost his two last friends, Lou Salom and Paul Re. Nevertheless he had continued his task and, indeed, created, at the moment of his profoundest sorrow, his bravest book. Friedrich Nietzsche let himself be stirred by these memories of the past.
He now received a letter which was the first sign of his coming fame. In August, 1886, in despair of being listened to by his compatriots, he had sent his book, Beyond Good and Evil, to two foreign readers, to the Dane Georges Brandes, and to the Frenchman Hippolyte Taine. Georges Brandes did not reply. Hippolyte Taine wrote (October 17, 1886) a letter which gave Nietzsche some joy.
"On my return from a voyage, I found the book which you were good enough to send me; as you say, it is full of 'thoughts from behind' ('penses de derrire'); the form, which is so lively, so literary, the impassioned style, the often paradoxical turn, will open the eyes of the reader who wants to understand; I will in particular recommend to philosophers your first piece on philosophers and philosophy (pp. 14, 17, 20, 25); but the historians and critics will also have their share in the booty of new ideas (for example 41, 75, 76, 149, 150, &c). What you say of national genius and character in your eighth essay is infinitely suggestive, and I shall re-read this piece, although I find there a far too flattering word relative to myself. You do me a great honour in your letter by putting me by the side of M. Burckhardt of Basle, whom I greatly admire; I think that I was the first man in France to announce in the press his great work upon the Culture of the Renaissance in Italy.... With best thanks, I am,
"Yours sincerely,
"H. TAINE."
Paul Lanzky rejoined Friedrich Nietzsche at Ruta. Not having seen him for eighteen months, he was struck by the change which he observed in him. The body was weighed down, the features altered. But the man remained the same; however bitter his life had become,[Pg 319] he was still affectionate and nave, quick to laughter like a child. He brought Lanzky up the mountain which gives at every instant such magnificent views over the snowy Alps and the sea. The two rested in the most beautiful spots; then they gathered up bits of old timber and twigs from the autumn vines and lit fires, Nietzsche saluting the flames and the rising smoke with cries of joy.
It was then, it was in this inn at Ruta, that Nietzsche drew up the prefaces to The Dawn of Day and The Gay Science, in which he recounted with so strange a vivacity his spiritual Odyssey: Triebschen and Wagner's friendship; Metz and the discovery of war; Bayreuth, hope and mishap; the rupture with Richard Wagner; the bruising of his love; the cruel years which he spent deprived of poetry and of art; finally Italy, which gave him back both; Venice and Genoa, the two towns which saved him, and the Ligurian coast, Zarathustra's cradle.
While Nietzsche wrote thus and struggled against depression, may it not be that he was taking drugs to excite himself to work? There is some evidence to suggest it. But we shall never have exact information on this point. We know that he was absorbing chloral and an extract of Indian hemp which, in small doses, produced an inward calm; in large doses, excitement. Perhaps he handled a more complicated pharmacopoeia in secret; it is the habit of nervous persons.
Friedrich Nietzsche liked this coast. "Imagine," he wrote to Peter Gast, "a little island in the Greek archipelago, pushed down here by the winds. It is a coast of pirates, swift, deceitful, dangerous...." He proposed to pass the winter there. But soon he modified his plans, and wished to return to Nice. Lanzky sought in vain to keep him back.
"You complain of being abandoned," he said to him. "Whose fault is it? You have disciples and you[Pg 320] discourage them. You call me here, you call Peter Gast; and you leave."
"I need the light, the air of Nice," answered Nietzsche; "I need the Bay of the Angels."
He went alone. During this winter, he completed his prefaces, he re-read and touched-up his books. He lived, it seems, in a singular condition of relaxation, indecision and melancholy. He sent his manuscripts to Peter Gast, as he always did, but his requests for advice have an unusual accent of unrest and humility. "Bead me," he wrote in February, 1887, "with more distrust than you generally do; say simply: this will do, this won't do I like this, why not alter that, &c., &c."
He read, and his readings seemed guided by a queer curiosity and less under the rigorous sway of his prejudices.
He familiarised himself with the works of the French decadents. He appreciated Baudelaire's writings on Richard Wagner, Paul Bourget's Essais de Psychologie Contemporaine. He read the Contes of Maupassant and admired this "great Latin." He ran through some volumes by Zola and did not allow himself to be seduced by a merely popular style of thought, by a merely decorative art. He bought, and commented in pencil on the margin, the Esquisse d'une Morale sans obligation ni sanction. Guyau, like Nietzsche and at the same moment, had had the idea of founding a system of morals on the expansive modalities of life. But he understood them in another sense and interpreted as a force of love what Nietzsche understood as a conquering force. Nevertheless the initial agreement was certain. Nietzsche valued highly the purity and intelligence of idea which he found in the work of the French philosopher. The vogue of the Russian novelists was then beginning. Nietzsche took an interest in these poets of a young, violent, and sensitive race, whose charm he always felt. "Do you know Dostoievsky?" he wrote to Peter Gast. "No one, with the[Pg 321] exception of Stendhal, has so satisfied and ravished me. There is a psychologist with whom I am in agreement!" He indicated the new author to all his correspondents. The religious fervour of the Slavs interested him and found him indulgent. It was not a symptom of weakness, he thought; it was the return of an energy which could not accept the cold constraints of modern society and whose insubordination took the form of a revolutionary Christianity. These barbarians, thwarted in their instincts, were disconcerted and self-accusatory; they had precipitated a crisis which was still undecided, and Nietzsche wrote: "This bad conscience is a malady, but a malady of the nature of pregnancy." For, hoping always, he obstinately defended his thoughts against his disgusts. He wished his thoughts to remain free, kindly and confident, and when there rose within him and towards them a hatred of Europe and of its debased peoples; when he feared that he might yield to his bitter humour, he corrected himself at once: "No," he kept on saying, "Europe is at present richer than ever in men, in ideas, in aspirations, better prepared for great tasks, and we must, contrary to all semblance, hope everything from these multitudes, though their ugly disposition seems to forbid hope."
