When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession

“And then, Fräulein?”
“Then I resolved to be more frank when we next met. But it turned out to be unnecessary. Nietzsche quickly realized that he was as frightened by the prospect of marriage as I was repelled by it.

Paul—Herr Rée—but, Doctor”—she flushed for only an instant, but long enough for Breuer to notice, and for her to notice him noticing—“allow me to call him Paul, since that is how I address him, and today we have no time for social niceties. I’m very close to Paul, though I’ll never immolate myself in marriage to him or to anyone!
“But,” she went on impatiently, “I have spent enough time explaining a brief involuntary flushing of my face. Aren’t we the only animals that blush?”
At a loss for words, Breuer could muster only a nod.

one desires, he believes, to help another: instead, people wish only to dominate and increase their own power.

“Despair—not illness. I have several recommendations. May I share them with you?”
Is there no limit to her presumption? he wondered indignantly. She speaks as though she were my confrère—the head of a clinic, a physician with thirty years of experience—not an inexperienced schoolgirl.

“Marriage? No, not for me! I have told you. Oh, perhaps a part-time marriage—that might suit me, but nothing more binding.”

He couldn’t help remarking, “I see you prefer to do things for yourself. Doesn’t that deprive men of the pleasure of serving you?”
“We both know that some of the services men provide are not necessarily good for women’s health!”

Then and there he conducted a thought experiment. First he tried to slip into the Viennese persona with all the pomposity he had come to hate. By puffing himself up and silently muttering “How dare she!,” squinting his eyes and gritting his frontal cerebral lobes, he re-experienced the pique and indignation that envelop those who take themselves too seriously. Then exhaling and relaxing, he let it all slip away and stepped back into his own skin—into a state of mind which could laugh at itself, at its own ridiculous posturing.

Amor fati—choose your fate, love your fate.

Amor fati—love your fate. It’s eerie, Josef, how twin-minded we are! I had planned to make Amor fati my next, and final, lesson in your instruction. I was going to teach you to overcome despair by transforming ‘thus it was’ into ’thus I willed it.

I don’t know what else to say except that, thanks to you, I know that the key to living well is first to will that which is necessary and then to love that which is willed.