NIETZSCHE: A DAY IN THE LIFE

Nietzsche had few friends by his death. One of the last men to know him recounts how he spent his final days as follows:

The myopic man sits down to a table. Carefully the man with the sensitive stomach considers every item on the menu. For every mistake in his diet upsets his sensitive indigestion and every transgression in his nourishment wreaks havoc with his quivering nerves for days. ... In his apartment, a tray of innumerable bottles and jars and potions (which serve) above all as the dreadful sedatives against his insomnia. A frightful arsenal of poisons and drugs is the only promise of help to the empty silence in his strange room in which he never rests except in brief and artificially conquered sleep. For hours he sits like this and writes until his eyes burn.