316 Nietzscheleft in peace or had retreated to his lofty position, he could compose pas-
sages of exquisite tranquillity and composure: "At this moment, I still
look out toward my future—an extensive future!—as though I am look-
ing at a calm sea: no desire is rippling on it. I do not in the least want any-
thing to become different from the way it is now; I myself do not want
to become different" (6,296; EH"Why I Am So Clever" § 9).
Earlier writings of Nietzsche resonate in these words. In Daybreak, he
had described the "great silence" of the ocean: "This enormous mute-
ness that suddenly comes over us is beautiful and dreadful, the heart
swells at it... it is starded by a new truth, it cannot speak either.... Speaking
and even thinking become hateful to me: do I not hear laughing behind
every word the error, the imagination, the spirit of delusion? Must I not
mock my compassion? Mock my mockery?—Ο ocean! Ο evening! You
are bad instructors! You teach man to cease being man! Should he sur-
render to you? Should he become the way you are now, pale, shining,
mute, vast, resting above himself? Exalted above himself?" (3,259; D §
423).
On January 3,1889, just after Nietzsche left his apartment, he caught
sight of a carriage driver beating his horse on the Piazza Cado Alberto.
Nietzsche, weeping, threw himself around the horse's neck to protect it
He collapsed in compassion with the horse. A few days later, Franz
Overbeck came to collect his mentally deranged friend. Nietzsche lived
on for one more decade.
Nietzsche's philosophical history ended in January 1889. Then com-
menced the other history, the history of his influence and resonance.