The Turin Horse

In Turin, on January 3rd, 1889,

Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the

door of number six Via Carlo Alberto,

perhaps to take a stroll, perhaps to go

by the post office to collect his mail.

Not far from him, or indeed

very far removed from him,

a cabman is having trouble

with his stubborn horse.

Despite all his urging,

the horse refuses to move,

whereupon the cabman...

Giuseppe? Carlo? Ettore?

...loses his patience

and takes his whip to it.

Nietzsche comes up to the throng

and puts an end to

the brutal scene of the cabman,

who by this time is foaming with rage.

The solidly built and full-mustached

Nietzsche suddenly jumps up to the cab

and throws his arms around

the horse's neck, sobbing.

His neighbor takes him home,

where he lies still and

silent for two days on a divan

until he mutters the obligatory last words,

"Mutter, ich bin dumm,"

and lives for another ten years,

gentle and demented,

in the care of his mother and sisters.

Of the horse, we know nothing.

THE FIRST DAY:

It's ready.

Go to bed.

Hey!

Hey, you!

What is it?

Can't you hear them either?

What?

The woodworms, they're not doing it.

I've heard them for 58 years.

But I don't hear them now.

They really have stopped.

What's it all about, papa?

I don't know.

Let's sleep.

She lies back and pulls

the blanket over herself.

Ohlsdorfer turns on his side

and fixes his eyes on the window.

The girl stares at the ceiling,

her father at the window.

At times a tile can be heard

crashing down from the roof

and shattering noisily.

The gale roars relentlessly

around the house.

THE SECOND DAY:

Come here!

Can't you see she won't move?

Stop it!

Come here!

F***!

It's ready.

I've run out of brandy.

Would you give me a bottle?

Give him some...

- Why didn't you go into town?

- The wind's blown it away.

How come?

It's gone to ruin.

Why would it go to ruin?

Because everything's in ruins,

everything's been degraded,

but I could say that they've

ruined and degraded everything.

Because this is not some kind of cataclysm,

coming about with

so-called innocent human aid.

On the contrary...

It's about man's own judgment,

his own judgment over his own self,

which of course God has a big hand in,

or, dare I say, takes part in.

And whatever he takes part in

is the most ghastly creation that

you can imagine.

Because, you see,

the world has been debased.

So it doesn't matter what I say,

because everything has been debased

that they've acquired,

and, since they've acquired everything

in a sneaky, underhanded fight,

they've debased everything.

Because whatever they touch,

and they touch everything,

they've debased.

This is the way it was until the final victory.

Until the triumphant end.

Acquire, debase,

debase, acquire.

Or I can put it differently if you'd like,

to touch, debase and thereby acquire,

or touch, acquire and thereby debase.

It's been going on like this

for centuries. On, on and on.

This and only this,

sometimes on the sly, sometimes rudely,

sometimes gently, sometimes brutally,

but it has been going on and on.

Yet only in one way,

like a rat attacks from ambush.

Because for this perfect victory,

it was also essential that the other side,

that is, everything that's excellent,

great in some way and noble,

should not engage in any kind of fight.

There shouldn't be any kind of struggle,

just the sudden disappearance of one side,

meaning the disappearance of the

excellent, the great, the noble.

So that by now the winners who have won

by attacking from ambush rule the earth,

and there isn't a single tiny nook

where one can hide something from them,

because everything they can

lay their hands on is theirs.

Even things we think they can't reach,

but they do reach,

are also theirs.

The heavens are already theirs,

and theirs are all our dreams.

Theirs is the moment, nature,

infinite silence.

Even immortality is theirs, you understand?

Everything, everything is lost forever!

And those many nobles,

great and excellent just stood there,

if I can put it that way.

They stopped at this point,

and had to understand, and had to accept

that there is neither God nor gods.

And the excellent, the great and the noble

had to understand and accept this

right from the beginning.

But, of course, they were quite incapable

of understanding it.

They believed it and accepted it

but they didn't understand it.

They just stood there, bewildered,

but not resigned,

until something, that flash on the mind,

finally enlightened them.

And all at once they realized

that there is neither God nor gods.

All at once they saw that

there is neither good nor bad.

Then they saw and understood that,

if this was so,

then they themselves did not exist either!

You see, I reckon this may have been

the moment when we can say that

they were extinguished, they burnt out.

Extinguished and burnt out

like the fire left to smolder in the meadow.

One was the constant loser,

the other was the constant victor.

Defeat, victory,

defeat, victory.

And one day, here in the neighborhood,

I had to realize,

and I did realize, that I was mistaken,

I was truly mistaken when I thought

that there had never been

and could never be any kind of

change here on earth.

Because, believe me, I know now

that this change has indeed taken place.

Come off it! That's rubbish!

THE THIRD DAY:

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