How did they judge him? Carefully he avoided any speech that might have pained or surprised them. He kept his dangerous thoughts to himself. So far as they were concerned, he wished to be, and knew how to be, an amiable companion ... learned, refined, and reserved. Still, whatever secret he made of his work, his friends did not fail to get an inkling into the mystery of his reserve. One of them, an Englishwoman in delicate health, whom he often went to visit and distract, broached the subject. "I know, Herr Nietzsche, why you won't let us see your books. If one were to believe what you say in them, a poor, suffering creature like myself would have no right to live." Nietzsche was apologetic, and warded off the accusation as best he could. Another, having said to him one day: "I have been told about your books. You've written in one of them, '_If thou goest among women, do not forget thy whip._'" "Dear lady, dear friend," answered Nietzsche, in a pained voice, taking the hands of her who reproached him in his own; "do not misunderstand me; it is not thus that I am to be understood." Did they admire him? To dare to admire an unrecognised author a very sure judgment is needed; and no doubt they lacked in necessary daring. They esteemed, they liked their hotel companion, and recognised his singular genius in conversation; at the _table d'hôte_ they looked to have the place near his: little enough it seems if one consider his present fame; then it was a great deal to him. He recovered in the Engadine, thanks to them, a little of the confidence which was necessary to his soul and which he had been losing in Germany. During the summer of 1886, some good musicians passed through Sils. In Nietzsche they discovered a very rare listener, and they liked to be heard by him. This courtesy touched him: "I notice," he wrote to Peter Gast, "that our artists only sing and play for me. I should be greatly spoilt if this continued." A certain Oriental story narrates the adventures of a masked sovereign who travels in his provinces; he is not recognised but divined; an instinct of respect awakes at his approach. In this mountain hotel, does not Nietzsche appear as a masked, a half-divined sovereign? Nevertheless it was but a poor comfort. Could these women lighten a distress which they could not measure? Nietzsche was traversing that grave moment of life in which a man, however unwilling to be taught, must learn at last what his fate with inexorable constancy gives and refuses him; he had to tear his last hopes from his heart. "I have been unspeakably sad in these latter days," he wrote to Peter Gast, "and cares have deprived me of sleep." The information is brief. To his sister he avows more; he addresses to her pages upon pages that are terrible in their power and monotony.