audiences were not unlike those of a first night at the opera generally. There was, it is true, a sprinkling of notable painters and musicians; and then there were fanatical Wagnerians, with pale faces and waving manes, who were almost ready to threaten violence, if criticism of the master or his work was made. Intrigues between artists were to be overheard (or heard of)—exclamations of wounded vanity. In general there was a kind of artificiality in the enthusiasm. The performances themselves were halting. Wagner was too preoccupied and hurried to have any real intercourse with Nietzsche, and contented himself with loud and extravagant praise of his book—and this jarred on Nietzsche and untuned him the more. Moreover, the master appeared in an unpleasantly realistic light—the air of repose was lacking, he had become stage-manager and even journalist; he was flattering national passions, too, showing himself anti-French and anti-Semitic. It was hard for Nietzsche to endure; and after the first performances, he went off into the Bohemian Forest, burying himself at Klingenbrunn for ten days, and noting down a few thoughts in a new vein. Then he came back to Bayreuth and tried again—but to no avail, and, before the cycle of representations had finished, he left the town never to return. It was the beginning of the end.
If we let this episode stand for more than it did at the moment, for the whole break with Wagner, we may say that the causes of the break were threefold: he was disappointed with the man, with his art, and with his way of thinking. Wagner had already proved at times to be a somewhat imperious and exacting nature. At the start Nietzsche responded to whatever was asked, and was even tender of the master's peculiarities. He yielded slightly, for instance, to Wagner's anti-Semitism, though going contrary to his own instincts in doing so.[1] Once, whether for this or other reasons—in any case, to avoid giving offense to Wagner—he gave up a projected journey with a son of Mendelssohn's to Greece;[2] and at other times he joined with friends in considering how best to spare one who was so easily touched.[3] But the time came when he
