The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms Part 4

And yet this other question can certainly not be circ.u.mvented: what business had he actually with that manly (alas! so unmanly) "bucolic simplicity," that poor devil and son of nature-Parsifal, whom he ultimately makes a catholic by such insidious means-what?-was Wagner in earnest with Parsifal? For, that he was laughed at, I cannot deny, any more than Gottfried Keller can.... We should like to believe that "Parsifal"

was meant as a piece of idle gaiety, as the closing act and satyric drama, with which Wagner the tragedian wished to take leave of us, of himself, and above all _of tragedy_, in a way which befitted him and his dignity, that is to say, with an extravagant, lofty and most malicious parody of tragedy itself, of all the past and terrible earnestness and sorrow of this world, of the most _ridiculous_ form of the unnaturalness of the ascetic ideal, at last overcome. For Parsifal is the subject _par excellence_ for a comic opera.... Is Wagner's "Parsifal" his secret laugh of superiority at himself, the triumph of his last and most exalted state of artistic freedom, of artistic transcendence-is it Wagner able to _laugh_ at himself? Once again we only wish it were so; for what could Parsifal be if he were _meant seriously_? Is it necessary in his case to say (as I have heard people say) that "Parsifal" is "the product of the mad hatred of knowledge, intellect, and sensuality?" a curse upon the senses and the mind in one breath and in one fit of hatred? an act of apostasy and a return to Christianly sick and obscurantist ideals? And finally even a denial of self, a deletion of self, on the part of an artist who theretofore had worked with all the power of his will in favour of the opposite cause, the spiritualisation and sensualisation of his art? And not only of his art, but also of his life? Let us remember how enthusiastically Wagner at one time walked in the footsteps of the philosopher Feuerbach. Feuerbach's words "healthy sensuality" struck Wagner in the thirties and forties very much as they struck many other Germans-they called themselves the young Germans-that is to say, as words of salvation. Did he ultimately _change his mind_ on this point? It would seem that he had at least had the desire of _changing_ his doctrine towards the end.... Had the _hatred of life_ become dominant in him as in Flaubert? For "Parsifal" is a work of rancour, of revenge, of the most secret concoction of poisons with which to make an end of the first conditions of life, _it is a bad work_. The preaching of chast.i.ty remains an incitement to unnaturalness: I despise anybody who does not regard "Parsifal" as an outrage upon morality.-

How I Got Rid Of Wagner.

1.

Already in the summer of 1876, when the first festival at Bayreuth was at its height, I took leave of Wagner in my soul. I cannot endure anything double-faced. Since Wagner had returned to Germany, he had condescended step by step to everything that I despise-even to anti-Semitism.... As a matter of fact, it was then high time to bid him farewell: but the proof of this came only too soon. Richard Wagner, ostensibly the most triumphant creature alive; as a matter of fact, though, a cranky and desperate _decadent_, suddenly fell helpless and broken on his knees before the Christian cross.... Was there no German at that time who had the eyes to see, and the sympathy in his soul to feel, the ghastly nature of this spectacle? Was I the only one who _suffered_ from it?-Enough, the unexpected event, like a flash of lightning, made me see only too clearly what kind of a place it was that I had just left,-and it also made me shudder as a man shudders who unawares has just escaped a great danger. As I continued my journey alone, I trembled. Not long after this I was ill, more than ill-I was _tired_;-tired of the continual disappointments over everything which remained for us modern men to be enthusiastic about, of the energy, industry, hope, youth, and love that are _squandered everywhere_; tired out of loathing for the whole world of idealistic lying and conscience-softening, which, once again, in the case of Wagner, had scored a victory over a man who was of the bravest; and last but not least, tired by the sadness of a ruthless suspicion-that I was now condemned to be ever more and more suspicious, ever more and more contemptuous, ever more and more _deeply_ alone than I had been theretofore. For I had no one save Richard Wagner.... I was always condemned to the society of Germans....

2.

Henceforward alone and cruelly distrustful of myself, I then took up sides-not without anger-_against myself_ and _for_ all that which hurt me and fell hard upon me; and thus I found the road to that courageous pessimism which is the opposite of all idealistic falsehood, and which, as it seems to me, is also the road to _me_-_to my mission_.... That hidden and dominating thing, for which for long ages we have had no name, until ultimately it comes forth as our mission,-this tyrant in us wreaks a terrible revenge upon us for every attempt we make either to evade him or to escape him, for every one of our experiments in the way of befriending people to whom we do not belong, for every active occupation, however estimable, which may make us diverge from our princ.i.p.al object:-aye, and even for every virtue which would fain protect us from the rigour of our most intimate sense of responsibility. Illness is always the answer, whenever we venture to doubt our right to _our_ mission, whenever we begin to make things too easy for ourselves. Curious and terrible at the same time! It is for our relaxation that we have to pay most dearly! And should we wish after all to return to health, we then have no choice: we are compelled to burden ourselves _more_ heavily than we had been burdened before....

The Psychologist Speaks.

1.

The oftener a psychologist-a born, an unavoidable psychologist and soul-diviner-turns his attention to the more select cases and individuals, the greater becomes his danger of being suffocated by sympathy: he needs greater hardness and cheerfulness than any other man. For the corruption, the ruination of higher men, is in fact the rule: it is terrible to have such a rule always before our eyes. The manifold torments of the psychologist who has discovered this ruination, who discovers once, and then discovers almost repeatedly throughout all history, this universal inner "hopelessness" of higher men, this eternal "too late!" in every sense-may perhaps one day be the cause of his "going to the dogs" himself.

In almost every psychologist we may see a tell-tale predilection in favour of intercourse with commonplace and well-ordered men: and this betrays how constantly he requires healing, that he needs a sort of flight and forgetfulness, away from what his insight and incisiveness-from what his "business"-has laid upon his conscience. A horror of his memory is typical of him. He is easily silenced by the judgment of others, he hears with unmoved countenance how people honour, admire, love, and glorify, where he has opened his eyes and _seen_-or he even conceals his silence by expressly agreeing with some obvious opinion. Perhaps the paradox of his situation becomes so dreadful that, precisely where he has learnt _great sympathy_, together with _great contempt_, the educated have on their part learnt great reverence. And who knows but in all great instances, just this alone happened: that the mult.i.tude worshipped a G.o.d, and that the "G.o.d" was only a poor sacrificial animal! _Success_ has always been the greatest liar-and the "work" itself, the _deed_, is a success too; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer, are disguised in their creations until they can no longer be recognised, the "work" of the artist, of the philosopher, only invents him who has created it, who is reputed to have created it, the "great men," as they are reverenced, are poor little fictions composed afterwards; in the world of historical values counterfeit coinage _prevails_.

2.

Those great poets, for example, such as Byron, Musset, Poe, Leopardi, Kleist, Gogol (I do not dare to mention much greater names, but I imply them), as they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, sensuous, absurd, versatile, light-minded and quick to trust and to distrust, with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed, often taking revenge with their works for an internal blemish, often seeking forgetfulness in their soaring from a too accurate memory, idealists out of proximity to the mud:-what a _torment_ these great artists are and the so-called higher men in general, to him who has once found them out! We are all special pleaders in the cause of mediocrity. It is conceivable that it is just from woman-who is clairvoyant in the world of suffering, and, alas! also unfortunately eager to help and save to an extent far beyond her powers-that _they_ have learnt so readily those outbreaks of boundless _sympathy_ which the mult.i.tude, above all the reverent mult.i.tude, overwhelms with prying and self-gratifying interpretations. This sympathising invariably deceives itself as to its power; woman would like to believe that love can do _everything_-it is the _superst.i.tion_ peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love is-how much more readily it _destroys_ than saves....

3.

The intellectual loathing and haughtiness of every man who has suffered deeply-the extent to which a man can suffer, almost determines the order of rank-the chilling uncertainty with which he is thoroughly imbued and coloured, that by virtue of his suffering he _knows more_ than the shrewdest and wisest can ever know, that he has been familiar with, and "at home" in many distant terrible worlds of which "_you_ know nothing!"-this silent intellectual haughtiness, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the "initiated," of the almost sacrificed, finds all forms of disguise necessary to protect itself from contact with gushing and sympathising hands, and in general from all that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes n.o.ble; it separates.-One of the most refined forms of disguise is Epicurism, along with a certain ostentatious boldness of taste which takes suffering lightly, and puts itself on the defensive against all that is sorrowful and profound. There are "cheerful men" who make use of good spirits, because they are misunderstood on account of them-they _wish_ to be misunderstood. There are "scientific minds" who make use of science, because it gives a cheerful appearance, and because love of science leads people to conclude that a person is shallow-they _wish_ to mislead to a false conclusion. There are free insolent spirits which would fain conceal and deny that they are at bottom broken, incurable hearts-this is Hamlet's case: and then folly itself can be the mask of an unfortunate and alas! all too dead-certain knowledge.

Epilogue.

1.

I have often asked myself whether I am not much more deeply indebted to the hardest years of my life than to any others. According to the voice of my innermost nature, everything necessary, seen from above and in the light of a _superior_ economy, is also useful in itself-not only should one bear it, one should _love_ it.... _Amor fati_: this is the very core of my being-And as to my prolonged illness, do I not owe much more to it than I owe to my health? To it I owe a _higher_ kind of health, a sort of health which grows stronger under everything that does not actually kill it!-_To it, I owe even my philosophy_.... Only great suffering is the ultimate emanc.i.p.ator of spirit, for it teaches one that _vast suspiciousness_ which makes an X out of every U, a genuine and proper X, _i.e._, the antepenultimate letter. Only great suffering; that great suffering, under which we seem to be over a fire of greenwood, the suffering that takes its time-forces us philosophers to descend into our nethermost depths, and to let go of all trustfulness, all good-nature, all whittling-down, all mildness, all mediocrity,-on which things we had formerly staked our humanity. I doubt whether such suffering improves a man; but I know that it makes him _deeper_.... Supposing we learn to set our pride, our scorn, our strength of will against it, and thus resemble the Indian who, however cruelly he may be tortured, considers himself revenged on his tormentor by the bitterness of his own tongue. Supposing we withdraw from pain into nonent.i.ty, into the deaf, dumb, and rigid sphere of self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, self-effacement: one is another person when one leaves these protracted and dangerous exercises in the art of self-mastery, one has one note of interrogation the more, and above all one has the will henceforward to ask more, deeper, sterner, harder, more wicked, and more silent questions, than anyone has ever asked on earth before.... Trust in life has vanished; life itself has become a _problem_.-But let no one think that one has therefore become a spirit of gloom or a blind owl! Even love of life is still possible,-but it is a _different kind_ of love.... It is the love for a woman whom we doubt....

2.

The rarest of all things is this: to have after all another taste-a _second_ taste. Out of such abysses, out of the abyss of _great suspicion_ as well, a man returns as though born again, he has a new skin, he is more susceptible, more full of wickedness; he has a finer taste for joyfulness; he has a more sensitive tongue for all good things; his senses are more cheerful; he has acquired a second, more dangerous, innocence in gladness; he is more childish too, and a hundred times more cunning than ever he had been before.

Oh, how much more repulsive pleasure now is to him, that coa.r.s.e, heavy, buff-coloured pleasure, which is understood by our pleasure-seekers, our "cultured people," our wealthy folk and our rulers! With how much more irony we now listen to the hubbub as of a country fair, with which the "cultured" man and the man about town allow themselves to be forced through art, literature, music, and with the help of intoxicating liquor, to "intellectual enjoyments." How the stage-cry of pa.s.sion now stings our ears; how strange to our taste the whole romantic riot and sensuous bustle, which the cultured mob are so fond of, together with its aspirations to the sublime, to the exalted and the distorted, have become.

No: if we convalescents require an art at all, it is _another_ art--a mocking, nimble, volatile, divinely undisturbed, divinely artificial art, which blazes up like pure flame into a cloudless sky! But above all, an art for artists, _only for artists_! We are, after all, more conversant with that which is in the highest degree necessary-cheerfulness, _every kind_ of cheerfulness, my friends!... We men of knowledge, now know something only too well: oh how well we have learnt by this time, to forget, _not_ to know, as artists!... As to our future: we shall scarcely be found on the track of those Egyptian youths who break into temples at night, who embrace statues, and would fain unveil, strip, and set in broad daylight, everything which there are excellent reasons to keep concealed.(15) No, we are disgusted with this bad taste, this will to truth, this search after truth "at all costs;" this madness of adolescence, "the love of truth;" we are now too experienced, too serious, too joyful, too scorched, _too profound_ for that.... We no longer believe that truth remains truth when it is _unveiled_,-we have lived enough to understand this.... To-day it seems to us good form not to strip everything naked, not to be present at all things, not to desire to "know" all.

"_Tout comprendre c'est tout mepriser._"... "Is it true," a little girl once asked her mother, "that the beloved Father is everywhere?-I think it quite improper,"-a hint to philosophers.... The shame with which Nature has concealed herself behind riddles and enigmas should be held in higher esteem. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for _not revealing her reasons?_... Perhaps her name, to use a Greek word is _Baubo_?-Oh these Greeks, they understood the art of _living!_ For this it is needful to halt bravely at the surface, at the fold, at the skin, to worship appearance, and to believe in forms, tones, words, and the whole _Olympus of appearance_! These Greeks were superficial-from _profundity_.... And are we not returning to precisely the same thing, we dare-devils of intellect who have scaled the highest and most dangerous pinnacles of present thought, in order to look around us from that height, in order to _look down_ from that height? Are we not precisely in this respect-_Greeks_?

Worshippers of form, of tones, of words? Precisely on that account-_artists_?

SELECTED APHORISMS FROM NIETZSCHE'S RETROSPECT OF HIS YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP WITH WAGNER.

(_Summer 1878._)

1.

My blunder was this, I travelled to Bayreuth with an ideal in my breast, and was thus doomed to experience the bitterest disappointment. The preponderance of ugliness, grotesqueness and strong pepper thoroughly repelled me.

2.

I utterly disagree with those who were dissatisfied with the decorations, the scenery and the mechanical contrivances at Bayreuth. Far too much industry and ingenuity was applied to the task of chaining the imagination to matters which did not belie their _epic_ origin. But as to the naturalism of the att.i.tudes, of the singing, compared with the orchestra!!

What affected, artificial and depraved tones, what a distortion of nature, were we made to hear!

3.

We are witnessing the death agony of the _last Art_: Bayreuth has convinced me of this.

4.