Chapter II: Footnote 57

A very beautiful example of this is found in C. A. Bernoulli: “Franz
Overbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine Freundschaft,” 1908 (Pt. I, p.
72). This author depicts Nietzsche’s behavior in Basle society: “Once
at a dinner he said to the young lady at his side, ‘I dreamed a short
time ago that the skin of my hand, which lay before me on the table,
suddenly became like glass, shiny and transparent, through which I saw
distinctly the bones and the tissues and the play of the muscles. All
at once I saw a toad sitting on my hand and at the same time I felt an
irresistible compulsion to swallow the beast. I overcame my terrible
aversion and gulped it down.’ The young lady laughed. ‘And do you
laugh at that?’ Nietzsche asked, his deep eyes fixed on his companion,
half questioning, half sorrowful. The young lady knew intuitively that
she did not wholly understand that an oracle had spoken to her in the
form of an allegory and that Nietzsche had revealed to her a glimpse
into the dark abyss of his inner self.” On page 166 Bernoulli
continues as follows: “One can perhaps see, behind that harmless
pleasure of faultless exactness in dress, a dread of contamination
arising from some mysterious and tormenting disgust.”

Nietzsche went to Basle when he was very young; he was then just at
the age when other young people are contemplating marriage. Seated
next to a young woman, he tells her that something terrible and
disgusting is taking place in his transparent hand, something which he
must take completely into his body. We know what illness caused the
premature ending of Nietzsche’s life. It was precisely this which he
would tell the young lady, and her laughter was indeed discordant.

Footnote 58:

A whole series of psychoanalytic experiences could easily be produced
here to illustrate this statement.

Footnote 59:

Ferenczi: “Introjektion und Übertragung,” _Jahrbuch_, Pt. I (1912).