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PARTISAN REVIEW
the people passing there, hurrying in the morning sun, alike and dif–
ferent
as
leaves, there seemed to issue a secret that did not come only
from the death that was still in ambush behind his back, a secret
that was far less of death than of life-a secret that would not have
been less poignant if man had been immortal.
"I have known that . . . feeling," said Walter. "And it seems
to me sometimes that I
will
find it again, when I am old. . . . "
My father gazed at this man of seventy-five who said: when
I am old.... Walter fixed
his
eyes on him, lifted his hand:
"They tell me that you recently dedicated one of your courses
to my friend Friedrich Nietszche, when you were among those . . .
Turks? I was in Turin-! happened to be in Turin ... when I
learned that he had just gone crazy there. I hadn't seen him: I had
just arrived. Overbeck, who had been informed of it, tumbled, so
to speak, from Basle to my lodgings: he had to take the poor man
away immediately and hadn't even enough money for the tickets.
As
usual! You ... know Nietzsche's face" (Walter indicated the
portrait behind him); "but the photographs don't convey
his
ex–
pression: he had a feminine sweetness, in spite of
his ...
ogre's
moustache. That expression was gone."
His head was still motionless, his voice still withdrawn-as
if
he
were speaking, not to my father but to the bo<?ks and the illustrious
photographs in the shadows,
as
if no listener would have been quite
worthy of understanding him; or rather (my father's impression
developed as he listened to him)
as
if the associates who would have
understood what he was going to say were all of another epoch, as
if no one, today, would take the trouble to understand, and he were
talking only out of courtesy, lassitude and a sense of duty. There
was in
his
whole attitude the same haughty modesty that was expressed
by his little elevated desk.
"When Overbeck, in his distress, had cried 'Freidrich!' the
poor man had embraced him, and immediately afterwards asked
him in a distracted voice: 'Have you ever heard of Friedrich
Nietzsche?' Overbeck reached out his hand clumsily.
"I?
no, I'm
a stupid man. . . . "
Walter's hand, still raised, imitated Overbeck's. My father loved
Nietzsche more than any other writer. Not for his preaching, but for
the incomparable generosity of intelligence that he found in him. He
listened, uneasy, fascinated.
"Then Friedrich had talked about the honors that were being
