The voyage to Paris, here mentioned, was the last conceived, and the dearest of his dreams. He caressed the idea of it, and, as he was never able to keep a joy to himself alone, he must write to Gersdorff and then to Rohde, and to two other comrades, Kleimpaul and Romundt: "After the last year of our studies," he said to them, "let us go to Paris together and spend a winter there: let us forget our learning: let us dispedantise ourselves (_dépédantisons-nous_); let us make the acquaintance of the _divin cancan,_ the green absinthe: we will drink of it; let us go to Paris and live _en camarades,_ and, marching the boulevards, let us represent Germanism and Schopenhauer down there; we shall not be altogether idle: from time to time we will send a little copy to the newspapers, casting a few Parisian anecdotes athwart the world; after a year and a half, after two years [he never ceased to prolong the imaginary period], we will come back to pass our examination." Rohde having promised his company, Nietzsche bore less impatiently the weariness of a convalescence which lasted until the summer. At last he was cured. In the first days of October, feeling a lively need for the pleasures which Naumburg had not to offer--music, society, conversation, the theatre--he reinstalled himself at Leipsic. Both masters and comrades gave him a warm welcome. His re-entry was happy. He had scarcely completed his twenty-third year and a glorious dawn already preceded him. An important review in Berlin asked him for some historical studies, and he gave them. In Leipsic itself he was offered the editorship of a musical review: this he refused, although importuned. _"Nego ac pernego,"_ wrote he to Rohde, now in residence in another University city. He interested himself in everything, except politics. The din and confusion of men in public meeting assembled was insupportable to him. "Decidedly," said he, "I am not a ζῶον πολιτικον." And he wrote to his friend Gersdorff, who had been giving him some information about Parliamentary intrigues in Berlin: "The course of events astonishes me; but I cannot well understand them, nor take them in, unless I draw out of the crowd and consider apart the activity of a determined man. Bismarck gives me immense satisfaction. I read his speeches as though I were drinking a strong wine; I hold back my tongue that it may not swallow too quickly and that my enjoyment may last. The machinations of his adversaries, as you relate them to me, I conceive without difficulty; for it is a necessity that everything that is small, narrow, sectarian and limited should rebel against such natures and wage an eternal war upon them."