A new element aggravated his trouble. He was informed definitely of the significance of the forthcoming work, _Parsifal_. Richard Wagner was about to declare himself a Christian. Thus, in eighteen months, Nietzsche observed two conversions: Romundt was weak and perhaps the victim of chance; but Nietzsche knew that with Wagner everything was grave, and answered to the necessities of the century. Neo-Christianity did not yet exist: Nietzsche felt it all through _Parsifal._ He perceived the danger run by the modern man, so uncertain of himself, and tempted by this Christian faith, which is so firm a thing, which calls, which promises and can give peace. If he did not redouble his efforts to discover in himself a new "possibility of life," it was certain that he would fall back into a Christianity, cowardly like his inspiration. Then Nietzsche saw these men, whose happiness he had instinctively despised, menaced by a final collapse, and led gently, and as if by the hand, towards this collapse by the master, by the impostor who had subjugated them. Not one of them knew whither this powerful hand might not soon lead them, scarcely one of them was a Christian, but they were all on the eve of becoming Christians. How far away was that May day of 1872 in which Richard Wagner conducted, in this same Bayreuth, Schiller and Beethoven's ode to liberty and joy! Friedrich Nietzsche saw clearly for them all: the spectacle of these unconscious lives made him feel desperate, as the sight of the world in the Middle Ages had made those mystics desperate, who had always before their eyes the accusing and bleeding image of the Christ. He would have liked to have torn these people from their torpor, to have warned them by a word, prevented them with a cry. "I ought to," he thought, "as I alone understand what is happening...." But who would have listened to him? He held his peace, he dissembled his dreadful impressions, and wished to observe without weakness or desertion the tragic solemnities. But he could not. Soon he weakened and had to fly. "_I should be insane to stay here. I await with terror each of these long musical evenings, and yet I stay. I can bear no more.... I shall go, no matter where, but I will go: here everything is torture to me...._" * * * * *