The Finale in Turin 315cordial the others were, they did not convey the impression of treating
him in a manner befitting his station in life. Nietzsche had already bro-
ken off all contact with Rohde in the preceding year, because Rohde
had made disparaging remarks about the distinguished French historian
and philosopher Hippolyte Taine. "I will not allow anyone to speak
about Monsieur Taine with such a lack of respect" (Β 8,76; May 19,
1888), he noted tersely. When Malwida von Meysenbug reacted to The
Case of Wagner by remarking that one ought not to treat one's "old
flame" so badly, even if the spark is gone, he answered her: "I have
gradually broken off almost all contact with other people, out of disgust
that they take me to be something other than what I am. Now it is your
turn" (B 8,457; Oct. 20,1888). He went on to call her an "idealist," the
sort of person who does not and cannot comprehend anything, espe-
cially not Nietzsche or his Übermensch. An idealist does not understand
the nature or necessity of cruelty. He accused her of having too innocu-
ous an image of him. He was decidedly not good-natured, well-
behaved, or idealistic, and did not wish to be so. Malwida had never
grasped and was incapable of grasping "that the type of person who
would not be repellent to me would be precisely the antithesis of the
revered idols of the past, a hundred times more like the type of Cesare
Borgia than like a Christ" (B 8,458; Oct. 20,1888).
Nietzsche found the ultimate barbs to direct at his sister in return for
the constant stream of insults he had endured from his family. However,
the only extant versions of most of his malevolent letters to Elisabeth
are drafts. It cannot be determined to what extent they reflect the con-
tents of the letters that were actually sent, since, as we now know,
Nietzsche's sister suppressed certain materials. In a draft of a letter
dated mid-November 1888, he wrote: "You do not have the foggiest
notion of being next of kin to a man and destiny in which the questions
of millennia have been resolved" (B 8,473).
Nietzsche felt as though he were floating on air when he gazed at the
vast landscape of things and people. Nothing could aspire to drag him
down; any sensations of this sort could only infuriate him. When he was