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"NICE, January 25, 1888. "I must relate a little adventure to you: yesterday, as I was taking my usual walk, I heard, not far off, a warm and frank laugh (I thought that I heard your laugh); and when this laughing person came near me—I saw a very[Pg 344] charming girl, with brown eyes, delicate as a deer. The sight warmed my heart, my old solitary philosopher's heart—I thought of your matrimonial advice, and for the rest of my walk, I could not rid myself of the image of this young and gracious girl. Assuredly it would do me good to have so gracious a thing by me—but would it do her good? Would not I, with my ideas, make this girl unhappy? And would not my heart break (we assume that I love her) if I saw so amiable a creature suffering? No, no marriage!"
Was it not now that a singular and unwholesome idea fixed itself in his thought? At every moment he was picturing to himself the joys of which he was deprived: fame, love, and friendship; he thought rancourously of those who possessed them, and above all of Richard Wagner, whose genius had been always so sumptuously rewarded. How beautiful she had been, when he knew her at Triebschen, this incomparable woman Cosima Lizst, come, while yet married, to the scandal of the world, to live with Wagner and help in his work! Attentive and clear-minded, active and helpful, she assured him the security which he had hitherto lacked. Without her, what would have become of him? Could he have mastered his impatient, restless, excitable temperament? would he have been capable of realising those great works which he was for ever announcing? Cosima appeased him, directed him; thanks to her, he achieved the Tetralogy, he reared Bayreuth, he wrote Parsifal.... Nietzsche recalled those fine days at Triebschen. Cosima welcomed him, listened to his ideas and projects, read his manuscripts, was benevolent, talked brightly to him. Suffering and irritation deformed his memories; he became infatuated with the thought that he had loved Cosima Wagner and that she, perhaps, had loved him. Nietzsche wished to believe this, and came to believe it.[Pg 345] Yes, there had been love between them, and Cosima would have saved him, as she saved Wagner, if, by lucky chance, she had only known him a few years earlier. But every circumstance had been unfavourable to Nietzsche. Here again Wagner had robbed him. He had taken all, fame, love, friendship.
We can divine this strange romance in the last works of Friedrich Nietzsche. A Greek myth helps him to express and veil his thoughts; it is the myth of Ariadne, Theseus, and Bacchus. Theseus was lost; Ariadne has met him and led him to the exit from the labyrinth; but Theseus is treacherous: he abandons upon the rock the woman who has saved him; Ariadne would die alone and in despair if Bacchus did not intervene, Bacchus-Dionysios who loves her. The enigma of these three names may be solved: Ariadne is Cosima; Theseus, Wagner; Bacchus-Dionysios, Nietzsche.
On the 31st of March he wrote again, and his language was that of a lost soul.
"Night and day, I am in a state of unbearable tension and oppression, by reason of the duty imposed upon me and also on account of my conditions of life, which are absolutely opposed to the accomplishment of this duty; here no doubt the cause of my distress must be sought.
.... My health, thanks to an extraordinarily fine winter, to good nourishment, to long walks, has remained sufficiently good. Nothing is sick, but the poor soul. Besides, I will not conceal the fact that my winter has been very rich in spiritual acquisitions for my great work: so the mind is not sick; nothing is sick, but the poor soul."
Nietzsche left Nice next day. He wished, before going up to the Engadine, to make the experiment of a stay in Turin. Its dry air and spacious streets had been[Pg 346] praised in his hearing. He travelled with difficulty; he lost his luggage and his temper, quarrelled with the porters, and remained for two days ill at Sampiedarena, near Genoa; in Genoa itself, he spent three days of rest, fully occupied with the happy memories which he found again. "I thank my luck," he wrote to Peter Gast, "that it led me back to this town, where the will rises, where one cannot be cowardly. I have never felt more gratitude than during this pilgrimage to Genoa...." On Saturday, April 6th, he arrived at Turin, broken with fatigue. "I am no longer capable of travelling alone," he said to Peter Gast in the same letter. "It agitates me too much, everything affects me stupidly."
Here we should discontinue our story to forewarn the reader. Hitherto, we have been following the history of Nietzsche's thought. Nietzsche's thought has now no longer a history, for an influence, come not from the mind, but from the body, has affected it. People sometimes say that Nietzsche was mad long before this. It may be that they are right; it is impossible to reach an assured diagnosis. At least he had retained his power of reflection, his will. He could still hold himself and his judgments in check. In the spring of 1888 he lost this faculty. His intelligence is not yet darkened; there is not a word he writes but is penetrating and trenchant. His lucidity is extreme, but disastrous, since it exercises itself only to destroy. As one studies the last months of this life, one feels as though one were watching the work of some engine of war which is no longer governed by the hand of man.
Friedrich Nietzsche abandoned those moral researches[Pg 347] which had strengthened his work till now, enriched and elevated it. Let us recall a letter addressed to Peter Gast in February, 1888: "I am in a state of chronic irritability which allows me, in my better moments, a sort of revenge, not the finest sort—it takes the form of an excess of hardness." These words shed light on the three coming books: The Case of Wagner, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist.
We shall hurry on with the story of those months in which Nietzsche is no longer quite himself.
About the 7th of April he received an unexpected letter at Turin. Georges Brandes wrote informing him of a projected series of conferences which were to be devoted to his philosophy. "It annoys me," wrote Brandes, "to think that no one knows you here, and I wish to make you known all of a sudden." Nietzsche replied: "Truly, dear sir, this is a surprise. Where did you get such courage that you can speak in public of a vir obscurissimus?... Perhaps you imagine that I am known in my own country. They treat me as something singular and absurd, which it is not at all necessary to take seriously" He ended by remarking, "The long resistance has exasperated my pride a little. Am I a philosopher? What does it matter?"
The letter should have been an occasion of great joy; and, perhaps, had it been possible to save him, the occasion of his salvation. Assuredly he felt some happiness, but we scarcely discern it. The hour was late, and Nietzsche now followed the tracks whither his destiny had drawn him.
During these days of weariness and tension, he procured a translation of the Laws of Manu, for he wished to become familiar with the model of those hierarchic societies for whose renovation he hoped. He read, and[Pg 348] his expectations were not deceived; this, the last study of his life, turned out to be one of the most important he had ever undertaken. It delighted him to ecstasy—here was a code on which were established the customs and the order of four castes, a language that was beautiful, simple, human in its very severity, a constant nobleness of thought. And the impression of security, of sweetness which detached itself from the book as a whole! Here are some commandments from its earlier pages:
