They would say: "Well, then lend us your books."
He refused their requests most positively, and again explained to Lanzky that his writings were not for the man in the street.
"Master," asked Lanzky, "why do you print them?"
It appears that no answer was given to this reasonable question.
Nietzsche, however, dissembled even with Lanzky. The formation of a society of friends, of an idealistic phalanstery similar to that in which Emerson lived—this old dream of his he loved to repeat and elaborate for him.
He often led Lanzky to the peninsula of Saint-Jean. "Here," he would say in Biblical phrase—"Here we shall pitch our tents." He went so far as to select a group of little villas which seemed to be suitable for his purpose. But the members were not yet decided upon, and the name of Heinrich von Stein, the only friend, the only disciple whom he really wanted, was never mentioned in Lanzky's presence.
There was no news of Stein's coming, nor of his plans. To Nietzsche he gave no sign. We may assume that he had gone to Sils-Maria to conciliate, if possible, the two masters. But one of them had said that he must choose between the two: perhaps he had been disturbed for a moment. He returned, however, to his Germany, and there he saw Cosima Wagner again. Nietzsche had required that he should choose, and he remained faithful to Wagner.
Nietzsche anticipated a new desertion. He was afraid, and, yielding to a humble and mournful impulse, wrote, in the form of a poem, an appeal which he addressed to the young man:
O midday of life! O solemn time!
O garden of summer!
Unquiet happiness I am there: listening, waiting!
Night and day, living in hope of the friend;
"Where are ye, friends? Come! It is time, it is time!"[10]
Heinrich von Stein felt it incumbent upon him to reply. He wrote: "To an appeal such as yours there is but one suitable reply. It is that I should come and give myself entirely to you, vowing, as to the noblest of tasks, all my time to the understanding of the new Gospel which you have to preach. But this is forbidden me. An idea, however, strikes me. Every month I entertain two friends and read with them some article from the Wagner-Lexicon. It is taken as text, and, on it, I speak to them. These conversations are becoming more and more lofty and free. Latterly we have found this definition of æsthetic emotion—a passage to the impersonal through very fulness of personality. I think that our meetings would please you. And how if Nietzsche should now and again send us the text? Would you communicate with us in this way? Would you not see in such a correspondence an introduction, a step towards your idea of a cloister?"