"The culture of the future: its ideal of social problems. The imperative world of the beautiful and the sublime ... the only safeguard against Socialism ..."
Finally these three interrogatory words, which sum up his doubts, his desires, and perhaps his whole work: "Ist Veredlung möglich?" (Is ennoblement possible?)
Friedrich Nietzsche courageously renounced his hope and was silent. He had lost his country: Prussia would not be the invincible framework of a lyrical race; the German Empire would not realise the "imperative world of the beautiful and the sublime." On April 30th the new University of Strassburg was inaugurated. "I hear from here the patriotic rejoicings," he wrote to Erwin Rohde. In January he had refused an offer of employment which would have withdrawn him from Basle. In April he spoke of leaving Basle and of going to Italy for two or three years. "The first review of my book has at last appeared," he wrote, "and I find it very good. But where has it appeared? In an Italian publication, La Rivista Europea! That is pleasant and symbolical!"
He had a second reason for melancholy: Richard Wagner was leaving to make his home at Bayreuth. A letter of Cosima Wagner announced the departure: "Yes, Bayreuth!... Adieu to dear Triebschen, where the Origin of Tragedy was conceived, and so many other things which perhaps will never begin again!"
Three years before, in this spring season, Nietzsche had hazarded his first visit to Triebschen; he wished to return again. He did return, and found the house desolate. A few pieces of furniture, covered over with horse-cloths and dispersed from room to room, seemed like flotsam and jetsam from another time. Every small object, all the family knick-knacks, had disappeared. The light entered, hard and crude, through the curtainless windows. Wagner and his wife were completing then-last packages, throwing the last of the books into the last of the baskets. They welcomed the faithful Nietzsche, asked his aid; he gave it at once. He wrapped up in packets the letters, the precious manuscripts; then more books and scores. Suddenly his heart failed him. So it was all over, Triebschen was done with! Three years of his life, and what years they had been! How unexpected, how moving, how delicious, and they were to escape in a day! Now he must renounce the past, and follow the master without regret. Now he must forget Triebschen and, for the future, think only of Bayreuth. No sooner was this magical name pronounced than it fascinated Nietzsche and troubled him. His hours at Triebschen had been so fine, hours of repose and meditation, hours of work and silence. A man, a woman of genius; a nest of children; an infinity of happy conversations, of beauty—Triebschen had given all that. What would Bayreuth give? The crowd would come there, and what would it bring with it? Friedrich Nietzsche left the books which he was engaged in packing. The grand piano had remained in the middle of the salon. He opened it, preluded, then improvised. Richard and Cosima Wagner, leaving aside all their affairs, listened. A harrowing, unforgettable rhapsody resounded through the empty salon. It was the adieu.
In November, 1888, Friedrich Nietzsche, already stricken with madness, set himself to recount his history. "Since I am here recalling the consolations of my life, I ought to express in a word my gratitude for what was by far my most profound and best-loved joy—my intimacy with Richard Wagner. I wish to be just with regard to the rest of my human relationships; but I absolutely cannot efface from my life the days at Triebschen, days of confidence, of gaiety, of sublime flashes—days of profound perceptions. I do not know what Wagner was for others: our sky was never darkened by a cloud."
[1] Cosima Wagner.