Note 2 — Chapter VI

This intimate history has never been known except to a few people, who are now, for the most part, out of our ken. Two women survive: one, Frau Förster-Nietzsche, has published some accounts which one would wish were more lucid and tranquil; the other, Miss Salomé, has written a book on Friedrich Nietzsche in which some facts are indicated and some letters cited; she has refused to enter into polemics on a subject which, as she considers, concerns herself alone. Oral traditions are numerous and contradictory. Some, rife in Roman society, where the adventure took place, are less favourable to Miss Salomé; she appears as a sort of Marie Bashkirtseff, an intellectual adventuress who was somewhat too enterprising. Others, rife in Germany among Miss Salomé's friends, are very different. We have heard all these traditions. The first have influenced the account which we have given in the Cahiers de la quinzaine, the second volume of the tenth series, pp. 24 et seq.; the second, which we learned later, we now prefer. But all hope of certainty must be adjourned.