Chapter II: December 1899 (2)

I should not like to leave Turin without telling you once more what a great share you have had in my first _successful_ spring. The history of my springs, for the last fifteen years at least, has been, I must tell you, a tale of horror, a fatality of decadence and infirmity. Places made no difference; it was as though no prescription, no diet, no climate could change the essentially depressing character of this time of year. But behold, Turin! And the first good news, _your_ news, my dear Sir, which proved to me that I am alive.... For I am sometimes apt to forget that I am alive. An accident, a question reminded me the other day that one of life's leading ideas is positively quenched in me, the idea of the _future_. No, wish, not the smallest cloudlet of a wish before me! A bare expanse! Why should not a day from my seventieth year be exactly like my day to-day? Have I lived too long in proximity to death to be able any longer to open my eyes to fair possibilities. --But certain it is that I now limit myself to thinking from day to day--that I settle to-day what is to be done to-morrow--and not for a single day beyond it! This may be irrational, unpractical, perhaps also unchristian--that preacher on the Mount forbade this very "taking thought for the morrow"--but it seems to me in the highest degree philosophical. I gained more respect for myself than I had before:--I understood that I had unlearnt how to wish, without even wanting to do so.

These weeks I have employed in "transvaluing values."--You understand this trope?--After all, the alchemist is the most deserving kind of man there is! I mean the man who makes of what is base and despised something valuable, even gold. He alone confers wealth, the others merely give change. My problem this time is rather a curious one: I have asked myself what hitherto has been best hated, feared, despised by mankind--and of that and nothing else I have made my "gold"....

If only I am not accused of false-coining! Or rather; that is what will happen.

Has my photograph reached you? My mother has shown me the great kindness of relieving me from the appearance of ungratefulness in such a special case. It is to be hoped the Leipzig publisher, E. W. Fritzsch, has also done his duty and sent off the Hymn.

In conclusion I confess to a feeling of curiosity. As it was denied me to listen at the crack of the door to learn something about myself, I should like to hear something in another way. Three words to characterise the subjects of your different lectures--how much should I learn from three words!

With cordial and devoted greetings,

Your

NIETZSCHE.

14. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.

_Copenhagen_ May 23, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

For letter, portrait and music I send you my best thanks. The letter and the music were an unqualified pleasure, the portrait might have been better. It is a profile taken at _Naumburg_, characteristic in its attitude, but with too little expression. You _must_ look different from this; the writer of _Zarathustra_ must have many more secrets written in his own face.

I concluded my lectures on Fr. Nietzsche before Whitsuntide. They ended, as the papers say, in applause "which took the form of an ovation." The ovation is yours almost entirely. I take the liberty of communicating it to you herewith in writing. For I can only claim the credit of reproducing, clearly and connectedly, and intelligibly to a Northern audience, what you had originated.

I also tried to indicate your relation to various contemporaries, to introduce my hearers into the workshop of your thought, to put forward my own favourite ideas, where they coincided with yours, to define the points on which I differed from you, and to give a psychological portrait of Nietzsche the author. Thus much I may say without exaggeration: your name is now very popular in all intelligent circles in Copenhagen, and all over Scandinavia it is at least _known_. You have nothing to thank me for; it has been a _pleasure_ to me to penetrate into the world of your thoughts. My lectures are not worth printing, as I do not regard pure philosophy as my special province and am unwilling to print anything dealing with a subject in which I do not feel sufficiently competent.

I am very glad you feel so invigorated physically and so well disposed mentally. Here, after a long winter, we have mild spring weather. We are rejoicing in the first green leaves and in a very well-arranged Northern exhibition that has been opened at Copenhagen. All the French artists of eminence (painters and sculptors) are also exhibiting here. Nevertheless, I am longing to get away, but have to stay.

But this cannot interest you. I forgot to tell you: if you do not know the Icelandic sagas, you must study them. You will find there a great deal to confirm your hypotheses and theories about the morality of a master race.

In one trifling detail you seem to have missed the mark. _Gothic_ has certainly nothing to do with _good_ or _God_. It is connected with giessen, he who emits the seed, and means stallion, man.

On the other hand, our philologists here think your suggestion of _bonus--duonus_ is much to the point.

I hope that in future we shall never become entirely strangers to one another.

I remain your faithful reader and admirer,

GEORGE BRANDES.

15. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES. (Post-card.)

_Turin_, May 27, 1888.

What eyes you have! You are right, the Nietzsche of the photograph is not yet the author of _Zarathustra_--he is a few years too young for that.

I am very grateful for the etymology of _Goth_; it is simply godlike.

I presume you are reading another letter of mine to-day.

Your gratefully attached

N.

16. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.

_Sils-Maria_, Sept. 13, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

Herewith I do myself a pleasure--that of recalling myself to your memory, by sending you a wicked little book, but one that is none the less very seriously meant; the product of the _good_ days of Turin. For I must tell you that since then there have been _evil_ days in Superfluity; such a decline in health, courage and "will to life," to talk Schopenhauer, that the little spring idyll scarcely seemed credible any longer. Fortunately I still possessed a document belonging to it, the _Case of Wagner. A Musician's Problem_. Spiteful tongues will prefer to call it _The Fall of Wagner_.

Much as you may disclaim music (--the most importunate of all the Muses), and with however good reason, yet pray look at this piece of musician's psychology. You, my dear Mr. Cosmopolitan, are far too European in your ideas not to hear in it a hundred times more than my so-called countrymen, the "musical" Germans.

After all, in this case I am a connoisseur _in rebus et personis_--and, fortunately, enough of a musician by instinct to see that in this ultimate question of values, the problem is accessible and _soluble_ through music.

In reality this pamphlet is almost written in French--I dare say it would be easier to translate it into French than into German.

Could you give me one or two more Russian or French addresses to which there would be some _sense_ in sending the pamphlet?

In a month or two something _philosophical_ may be expected; under the very inoffensive title of _Leisure Hours of à Psychologist_ I am saying agreeable and disagreeable things to the world at large--including that intelligent nation, the Germans.

But all this is in the main nothing but recreation beside the main thing: the name of the latter is _Transvaluation of all Values_. Europe will have to discover a new Siberia, to which to consign the author of these experiments with values.

I hope this high-spirited letter will find you in one of your usual _resolute_ moods.

With kind remembrances,

Yours,

Dr. NIETZSCHE.

Address till middle of November: Torino (Italia) ferma in posta.

17. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.

_Copenhagen_, Oct. 6, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

Your letter and valued gift found me in a raging fever of work. This accounts for my delay in answering.

The mere sight of your handwriting gave me pleasurable excitement.

It is sad news that you have had a bad summer. I was foolish enough to think that you had already got over all your physical troubles.

I have read the pamphlet with the greatest attention and much enjoyment. I am not so unmusical that I cannot enter into the fun of it. I am merely not an expert. A few days before receiving the little book I heard a very fine performance of _Carmen_; what glorious music! However, at the risk of exciting your wrath I confess that Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_ made an indelible impression on me. I once heard this opera in Berlin, in a despondent, altogether shattered state of mind, and I felt every note. I do not know whether the impression was so deep because I was so ill.

Do you know Bizet's widow? You ought to send her the pamphlet. She would like it. She is the sweetest, most charming of women, with a nervous _tic_ that is curiously becoming, but perfectly genuine, perfectly sincere and full of fire. Only she has married again (an excellent man, a barrister named Straus, of Paris). I believe she knows some German. I could get you her address, if it does not put you against her that she has not remained true to her god--any more than the Virgin Mary, Mozart's widow or Marie Louise.

Bizet's child is ideally beautiful and charming.--But I am gossiping.

I have given a copy of the book to the greatest of Swedish writers, August Strindberg, whom I have entirely won over to you. He is a true genius, only a trifle mad like most geniuses (and non-geniuses). The other copy I shall also place with care.

Paris I am not well acquainted with now. But send a copy to the following address: Madame la Princesse Anna Dmitrievna Ténicheff, Quai Anglais 20, Petersburg. This lady is a friend of mine; she is also acquainted with the musical world of Petersburg and will make you known there. I have asked her before now to buy your works, but they were all forbidden in Russia, even _Human, all-too-Human_.

It would also be as well to send a copy to Prince Urussov (who is mentioned in Turgeniev's letters). He is greatly interested in everything German, and is a man of rich gifts, an intellectual gourmet. I do not remember his address for the moment, but can find it out.

I am glad that in spite of all bodily ills you are working so vigorously and keenly. I am looking forward to all the things you promise me.

It would give me great pleasure to be read by you, but unfortunately you do not understand my language. I have produced an enormous amount this summer. I have written two long new books (of twenty-four and twenty-eight sheets), _Impressions of Poland and Impressions of Russia_, besides entirely rewriting one of my oldest books, _Æsthetic Studies_, for a new edition and correcting the proofs of all three books myself. In another week or so I shall have finished this work; then I give a series of lectures, writing at the same time another series in French, and leave for Russia in the depth of winter to revive there.

That is the plan I propose for my winter campaign. May it not be a Russian campaign in the bad sense.

I hope you will continue your friendly interest in me.

I remain,

Your faithfully devoted,

GEORGE BRANDES.

18. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.

_Turin_, Oct. 20, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

Once more your letter brought me a pleasant wind from the north; it is in fact so far the only letter that puts a "good face," or any face at all on my attack on Wagner. For people do not write to me. I have irreparably offended even my nearest and dearest. There is, for instance, my old friend, Baron Seydlitz of Munich, who unfortunately happens to be President of the Munich Wagner Society; my still older friend, _Justizrath_ Krug of Cologne, president of the local Wagner Society; my brother-in-law, Dr. Bernhard Förster in South America, the not unknown Anti--Semite, one of the keenest contributors to the _Bayreuther Blätter_--and my respected friend, Malwida von Meysenbug, the authoress of _Memoirs of an Idealist_, who continues to confuse Wagner with Michel Angelo....

On the other side I have been given to understand that I must be on my guard against the female Wagnerite: in certain cases she is said to be without scruple. Perhaps Bayreuth will defend itself in the German Imperial manner, by the prohibition of my writings--as "dangerous to public morals"; for here the Emperor is a party to the case.

My dictum, "we all know the inæsthetic concept of the Christian _Junker_," might even be interpreted as _lèse-majesté_.

Your intervention on behalf of Bizet's widow gave me great pleasure. Please let me have her address; also that of prince Urussov. A copy has been sent to your friend, the Princess Dmitrievna Ténicheff. When my next book is published, which will be before very long (the title is now _The Twilight of the Idols. Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer_), I should much like to send a copy to the Swede you introduce to me in such laudatory terms. But I do not know where he lives. This book is my philosophy _in nuce_--radical to the point of criminality....

As to the effect of _Tristan_, I, too, could tell strange tales. A regular dose of mental anguish seems to me a splendid tonic before a Wagnerian repast. The _Reichsgerichtsrath_ Dr. Wiener of Leipzig gave me to understand that a Carlsbad cure was also a good thing....

Ah, how industrious you are! And idiot that I am, not to understand Danish! I am quite willing to take your word for it that one can "revive" in Russia better than elsewhere; I count any Russian book, above all Dostoievsky (translated into French, for Heaven's sake not German!!) among my greatest sources of relief.

Cordially and, with good reason, gratefully,

Yours,

NIETZSCHE.

19. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.

_Copenhagen,_ Nov. 16, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have waited in vain for an answer from Paris to learn the address of Madame Bizet. On the other hand, I now have the address of Prince Urussov. He lives in Petersburg, Sergievskaia 79.

My three books are now out. I have begun my lectures here.

Curious it is how something in your letter and in your book about Dostoievsky coincides with my own impressions of him. I have mentioned you, too, in my work on Russia, when dealing with Dostoievsky. He is a great poet, but an abominable creature, quite Christian in his emotions and at the same time quite _sadique_. His whole morality is what you have baptised slave-morality.

The mad Swede's name is August Strindberg; he lives here. His address is Holte, near Copenhagen. He is particularly fond of you, because he thinks he finds in you his own hatred of women. On this account he calls you "modern" (irony of fate). On reading the newspaper reports of my spring lectures, he said: "It is an astonishing thing about this Nietzsche; much of what he says is just what I might have written." His drama, _Père_, has appeared in French with a preface by Zola.

I feel mournful whenever I think of Germany. What a development is now going on there! How sad to think that to all appearance one will never in one's lifetime be a historical witness of the smallest good thing.

What a pity that so learned a philologist as you should not understand Danish. I am doing all I can to prevent my books on Poland and Russia being translated, so that I may not be expelled, or at least refused the right of speaking when I next go there.

Hoping that these lines will find you still at Turin or will be forwarded to you, I am,

Yours very sincerely,

GEORGE BRANDES.

20. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES.

_Torino, via Carlo Alberto_, 6, III.

Nov. 20, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

Forgive me for answering at once. Curious things are now happening in my life, things that are without precedent. First the day before yesterday; now again. Ah, if you knew what I had just written when your letter paid me its visit.

With a cynicism that will become famous in the world's history, I have now related myself. The book is called _Ecce Homo_, and is an attack on the Crucified without the slightest reservation; it ends in thunders and lightnings against everything that is Christian or infected with Christianity, till one is blinded and deafened. I am in fact the first psychologist of Christianity and, as an old artilleryman, can bring heavy guns into action, the existence of which no opponent of Christianity has even suspected. The whole is the prelude to the _Transvaluation of all Values_, the work that lies ready before me: I swear to you that in two years we shall have the whole world in convulsions. I am a fate.

Guess who come off worst in _Ecce Homo_? Messieurs the Germans! I have told them terrible things.... The Germans, for instance, have it on their conscience that they deprived the last _great_ epoch of history, the Renaissance, of its meaning--at a moment when the Christian values, the _décadence_ values, were worsted, when they were conquered in the instincts even of the highest ranks of the clergy by the opposite instincts, the instincts of life. To _attack_ the Church--that meant to re-establish Christianity. (Cesare Borgia as pope--that would have been the meaning of the Renaissance, its proper symbol.)

You must not be angry either, to find yourself brought forward at a critical passage in the book--I wrote it just now--where I stigmatise the conduct of my German friends towards me, their absolute leaving me in the lurch as regards both fame and philosophy. Then you suddenly appear, surrounded by a halo....

I believe implicitly what you say about Dostoievsky; I esteem him, on the other hand, as the most valuable psychological material I know--I am grateful to him in an extraordinary way, however antagonistic he may be to my deepest instincts. Much the same as my relation to Pascal, whom I almost love, since he has taught me such an infinite amount; the only _logical_ Christian.

The day before yesterday I read, with delight and with a feeling of being thoroughly at home, Les mariés, by Herr August Strindberg. My sincerest admiration, which is only prejudiced by the feeling that I am admiring myself a little at the same time.

Turin is still my residence.

Your

NIETZSCHE, now a monster.

Where may I send you the _Twilight of the Idols_? If you will be at Copenhagen another fortnight, no answer is necessary.

21. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE.

_Copenhagen_, Nov. 23, 1888.

MY DEAR SIR,

Your letter found me to-day in full fever of work; I am lecturing here on Goethe, repeat each lecture twice and yet people wait in line for three quarters of an hour in the square before the University to get standing-room. It amuses me to study the greatest of the great before so many. I must stay here till the end of the year.

But on the other side there is the unfortunate circumstance that--as I am informed--one of my old books, lately translated into Russian, has been condemned in Russia to be publicly _burnt_ as "irreligious."

I already had to fear expulsion on account of my two last works on Poland and Russia; now I must try to set in motion all the influence I can command, in order to obtain permission to lecture in Russia this winter. To make matters worse, nearly all letters to and from me are now confiscated. There is great anxiety since the disaster at Borki. It was just the same shortly after the famous attempts. Every letter was snapped up.

It gives me lively satisfaction to see that you have again got through so much. Believe me, I spread your propaganda wherever I can. So late as last week I earnestly recommended Henrik Ibsen to study your works. With him too you have some kinship, even if it is a very distant kinship. Great and strong and unamiable, but yet _worthy_ of love, is this singular person. Strindberg will be glad to hear of your appreciation. I do not know the French translation you mention; but they say here that all the best things in _Giftas_ (_Mariés_) have been left out, especially the witty polemic against Ibsen. But read his drama _Père_; there is a great scene in it. I am sure he would gladly send it you. But I see him so seldom; he is so shy on account of an extremely unhappy marriage. Imagine it, he abhors his wife _intellectually_ and cannot get away from her _physically_. He is a monogamous misogynist!

It seems curious to me that the polemical trait is still so strong in you. In my early days I was passionately polemical; now I can only expound; silence is my only weapon of offence. I should as soon think of attacking Christianity as of writing a pamphlet against werewolves, I mean against the belief in werewolves.

But I see we understand one another. I too _love_ Pascal. But even as a young man I was _for_ the Jesuits against Pascal (in the _Provinciales_). The worldly-wise, they were right, of course; he did not understand them; but they understood him and--what a master-stroke of impudence and sagacity!--they themselves published his _Provinciales_ with notes. The best edition is that of the Jesuits.

Luther against the Pope, there we have the same collision. Victor Hugo in the preface to the _Feuilles d'Automne_ has this fine saying: _On convoque la diète de Worms mais on peint la chapelle Sixtine. Il y a Luther, mais il y a Michel-Ange ... et remarquons en passant que Luther est dans les vieilleries qui croulent autour de nous et que Michel-Ange n'y est pas._

Study the face of Dostoievsky: half a Russian peasant's face, half a criminal physiognomy, flat nose, little piercing eyes under lids quivering with nervousness, this lofty and well-formed forehead, this expressive mouth that speaks of torments innumerable, of abysmal melancholy, of unhealthy appetites, of infinite pity, passionate envy! An epileptic genius, whose exterior alone speaks of the stream of gentleness that filled his spirit, of the wave of acuteness almost amounting to madness that mounted to his head, and finally of the ambition, the immense effort, and of the ill-will that results from pettiness of soul.

His heroes are not only poor and pitiable creatures, but simple-minded sensitive ones, noble strumpets, often victims of hallucination, gifted epileptics, enthusiastic candidates for martyrdom--just those types which we should suspect in the apostles and disciples of the early days of Christianity.

Certainly nothing could be farther removed from the Renaissance.

I am excited to know how I can come into your book.

I remain your faithfully devoted

GEORGE BRANDES.

22. Unstamped. Without further address, undated. Written in a large hand on a piece of paper (not note-paper) ruled in pencil, such as children use. Post-mark: Turin, January 4, 1889.

TO THE FRIEND GEORG

When once you had discovered me, it was easy enough to find me: the difficulty now is to get rid of me ...

_The Crucified_.

As Herr Max Nordau has attempted with incredible coarseness to brand Nietzsche's whole life-work as the production of a madman, I call attention to the fact that signs of powerful exaltation only appear in the last letter but one, and that insanity is only evident in the last letter of all, and then not in an unqualified form.

But at the close of the year 1888 this dear and masterly mind began to be deranged. His self-esteem, which had always been very great, acquired a morbid character. His light and delicate self-irony, which appears not unfrequently in the letters here given, gave place to constantly recurring outbursts of anger with the German public's failure to appreciate the value of his works. It ill became a man of Nietzsche's intellect, who only a year before (see Letter No. 2) had desired a small number of intelligent readers, to take such offence at the indifference of the mob. He now gave expression to the most exalted ideas about himself. In his last book but one he had said: "I have given the Germans the profoundest books of any they possess "; in his last he wrote: "I have given mankind the profoundest book it possesses." At the same time he yielded to an impulse to describe the fame he hoped to attain in the future as already his. As the reader will see, he had asked me to furnish him with the addresses of persons in Paris and Petersburg who might be able to make his name known in France and Russia. I chose them to the best of my judgment. But even before the books he sent had reached their destinations, Nietzsche wrote in a German review: "And thus I am treated in Germany, I who am already _studied_ in Petersburg and Paris." That his sense of propriety was beginning to be deranged was already shown when sending the book to Princess Ténicheff (see Letter No. 18). This lady wrote to me in astonishment, asking what kind of a strange friend I had recommended to her: he had been sufficiently wanting in taste to give the sender's name on the parcel itself as "The Antichrist." Some time after I had received the last deranged and touching letter, another was shown me, which Nietzsche had presumably sent the same day, and in which he wrote that he intended to summon a meeting of sovereigns in Rome to have the young German Emperor shot there; this was signed "Nietzsche-Cæsar." The letter to me was signed "The Crucified." It was thus evident that this great mind in its final megalomania had oscillated between attributing to itself the two greatest names in history, so strongly contrasted.

It was exceedingly sad thus to witness the change that in the course of a few weeks reduced a genius without equal to a poor helpless creature, in whom almost the last gleam of mental life was extinguished for ever.