20. NIETZSCHE to BRANDES. _Torino, via Carlo Alberto_, 6, III. Nov. 20, 1888. MY DEAR SIR, Forgive me for answering at once. Curious things are now happening in my life, things that are without precedent. First the day before yesterday; now again. Ah, if you knew what I had just written when your letter paid me its visit. With a cynicism that will become famous in the world's history, I have now related myself. The book is called _Ecce Homo_, and is an attack on the Crucified without the slightest reservation; it ends in thunders and lightnings against everything that is Christian or infected with Christianity, till one is blinded and deafened. I am in fact the first psychologist of Christianity and, as an old artilleryman, can bring heavy guns into action, the existence of which no opponent of Christianity has even suspected. The whole is the prelude to the _Transvaluation of all Values_, the work that lies ready before me: I swear to you that in two years we shall have the whole world in convulsions. I am a fate. Guess who come off worst in _Ecce Homo_? Messieurs the Germans! I have told them terrible things.... The Germans, for instance, have it on their conscience that they deprived the last _great_ epoch of history, the Renaissance, of its meaning--at a moment when the Christian values, the _décadence_ values, were worsted, when they were conquered in the instincts even of the highest ranks of the clergy by the opposite instincts, the instincts of life. To _attack_ the Church--that meant to re-establish Christianity. (Cesare Borgia as pope--that would have been the meaning of the Renaissance, its proper symbol.) You must not be angry either, to find yourself brought forward at a critical passage in the book--I wrote it just now--where I stigmatise the conduct of my German friends towards me, their absolute leaving me in the lurch as regards both fame and philosophy. Then you suddenly appear, surrounded by a halo.... I believe implicitly what you say about Dostoievsky; I esteem him, on the other hand, as the most valuable psychological material I know--I am grateful to him in an extraordinary way, however antagonistic he may be to my deepest instincts. Much the same as my relation to Pascal, whom I almost love, since he has taught me such an infinite amount; the only _logical_ Christian. The day before yesterday I read, with delight and with a feeling of being thoroughly at home, Les mariés, by Herr August Strindberg. My sincerest admiration, which is only prejudiced by the feeling that I am admiring myself a little at the same time. Turin is still my residence. Your NIETZSCHE, now a monster. Where may I send you the _Twilight of the Idols_? If you will be at Copenhagen another fortnight, no answer is necessary. 21. BRANDES to NIETZSCHE. _Copenhagen_, Nov. 23, 1888. MY DEAR SIR,