After he had sucked the luscious orange of Italy dry and eaten of its pomegranates to satiety; after he had exhausted sensation in the search for sensation and he could no longer hope for stimulation from vision, from image, from sound, from color; when the nets of Eros were so lacerated and worn from having been dragged upon the rocks and crags of life; when Italian food, though appetizingly spiced and washed down with rare vintage of the Castelli Romani, would no longer nourish him, he abandoned his native land and went to France. His writings while in France were like those of a man who is dominated by a dementia following a protracted delirium, and as he emerged from this dementia he published a pietistic piece called "The Contemplation of Death." It seems to have been suggested to him by the death of the poet Pascoli, for whom he professed an admiration, but more particularly by Adolfo Bermond, whom he had met after he went to France and who apparently had been able to depict the beauties of humility so that they were recognizable to D'Annunzio. In his fatigued, emotional, and enfeebled mental state he asked himself whether humility was not more desirable than pride, love not stronger than hate, spiritual aristocracy more ennobling than aristocracy of blood, of money, of brain, of privilege. In this state of mock humility he wrote: "I always feel above me the presence of the sacrifice of Christ. I see now that the glory of my life is not in the beauty of my possessions. I have never felt so miserable and at the same time so powerful. Never since I lived have I had within me an instinct, a need so deep and so storming. I am aware that a part of my being, maybe the best part, is deeply asleep within me." But soon this spiritual awakening was throttled by the influence of Nietzsche. "What will become of me if I surrender wholly to the Saviour? Surely I want the world to know if in my life, filled with base instincts, there comes the moment of changing. Even if my glory be destroyed I will not be a prisoner to the worse that speaks within me." It was from that hour that he decided to be the Garibaldi of the third Italy. He would then be another Gabriel standing in the presence of God and sent to speak to them and show them glad tidings.