Daybreak

Nietsche on the verge of long-hoped for success

Daybreak

-Tell us what you can about the events of that day.  What was his mood?

 

-Oh he was like a sunburst that morning.  We all remarked it.  He could be gloomy, poor man, such a variety he had of headaches and nausea and so forth but that morning, no.  He was laughing and teasing, dancing his pretend waltz making grand, theatrical gestures that by then had come to seem somewhat peculiar. 

 

-Peculiar?

-Well...perhaps that's best left to the doctors.

-We don’t need a medical diagnosis.  Just say what you saw and heard.

-He'd been having such intense imaginings, as if from high fever or he were a part of a great arising, some wondrous dawn.

He ate an early breakfast, then said he must go out into the street, that there were crowds waiting for him to address them.  But of course there were always crowds in the street on a busy morning.

 

I said to him, ‘Herr Professor, are you going out like that’?  And he didn’t know what I meant.

 

He said, ‘Of course.  They are expecting me.  I am known!’

‘Your nightcap, Herr Professor’, I said.  ‘Surely you won’t be wearing that on the street?’

 

He was not at all concerned.  He said, ‘Do you not understand it is a giddy time?  That I may do giddy things?"  In a confiding tone he added, 'There are royal persons I must see who can’t very well be kept waiting.’ 

 

‘A king or queen,’ I said, trying to join in on the joke.

 

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘forward looking men.  Who recognize one can be not just a philosopher but at the same time a buffoon.’  And he gave a hearty laugh.

‘Such fanciful thinking, Herr Professor,’ was all I could manage.  It was all so gay and so sad.

Our gazes met and he happened onto a mood of reflection.  Then his eyes narrowed in that way of his, an eagle scanning the field, and he said with what I can only think of as a last gasp of lucidity:

 

‘I will tell you what I have been these many years: a digger.  A subterranean man. Burrowing in dark tunnels, inching forward in a cautious advance.  Breathing what little air such a circumstance allowed.   Deprived yes, of air and light but not the vision of air and light.

‘Did I seem content?  Did you think me happy?  Perhaps I was.  Perhaps I knew unhappiness then was necessary to the fulfillment that now uplifts me.  As I arrive at last at the surface!  And achieve this, my redemption.  My daybreak.’

 

Then with his wide, winking grin he flew out the door.  Still with the nightcap on.

 

-And what do you know of the incident itself? 

-I know nothing of this incident that is so talked about.  That he wrapped his arms round a horse’s neck.

 

-But many people say he threw himself between the horse and the coachman’s whip.  Is it not so?

 

-If he did, I didn’t see it.  What I know is late in the afternoon as the dusk was gathering there was a knock on the door.  Two police had brought him.  Said he had been--the word they used was “rioting”.  I didn’t bother about the details.  Once I saw the Professor’s condition the details didn’t seem important.

 

-And after that?

 

-After that?  He had gone as far as he could go.  Given what he had to give.  You'll excuse me now.  He must be fed, then bathed.  Then each of us must find our way through this dark night.

Reviews

[Ken e Bujold]

A very interesting read Montag. The continuous flow of dialogue is almost a rave in today's time. I found myself being sucked in deeper and deeper, in search of something buried, never certain of what it was I hoped to find. Sort of how it was when I read the works of FN as a youth.

ken e