November was fine; Friedrich Nietzsche recovered his spirits. "I lift myself above my disasters," he wrote He wandered over the mountains of the Genoese coast, he returned to the rocks on which had come to him the prose of _The Dawn. _ Such was the mildness of the weather that he could bathe in the sea. "I feel so rich, so proud," he wrote to Peter Gast, "altogether _'principe Doria._ I miss only you, dear friend, you and your music!" Since the representations of the _Nibelungen_ at Bayreuth--that is, for five years--Friedrich Nietzsche had deprived himself of music. _Cave musicam!_ he wrote. He feared that if he abandoned himself to the delight in sound he would be recaptured by the magic of Wagnerian art. But he was finally delivered from these fears. His friend Peter Gast had played him, in June, at Recoaro, songs and choruses which he had amused himself in composing on the epigrams of Goethe. Paul Rée had said one day, "No modern musician would be capable of putting to music such slight verses." Peter Gast had taken up the challenge and won, thought Nietzsche, who was ravished by the vivacity of the rhythm. "Persevere," he advised his friend; "work against Wagner the musician, as I work against Wagner the philosopher. Let us try, Rée, you and I, to free Germany. If you succeed in finding a music suited to the universe of Goethe (it does not exist), you will have done a great thing." This thought reappears in each of his letters. His friend is at Venice, he is at Genoa, and he hopes that this winter Italy will inspire in them both, the two uprooted Germans, a new metaphysic and a new music. He took advantage of his improved health to go to the theatre. He listened to the _Semiramis_ of Rossini, and four times to the _Juliette_ of Bellini. One evening he was curious to hear a French work, the author being unknown to him: "Hurrah! dear friend," he wrote to Peter Gast, "another happy discovery, an opera of Georges Bizet (who is he, then?), _Carmen._ It is like a story of Mérimée's, clever, powerful, sometimes touching. A true French talent which Wagner has not misguided, a frank disciple of Berlioz.... I almost think that _Carmen_ is the best opera which exists. As long as we live it will remain in all the repertoires of Europe." The discovery of _Carmen_ was the event of his winter. Many times he spoke of it, many times he returned to it; when he heard this frank and impassioned music, he felt better armed against the romantic seductions which were always powerful in his soul. "_Carmen_ delivers me," he was to write. * * * * *