In Turin, at the beginning of his madness, Nietzsche would rush to his mirror, look at himself, turn away, look again. In the train that was taking him to Basel, the one thing he always asked for was a mirror. He no longer knew who he was, kept looking for himself, and this man, so eager to protect his identity, so thirsty for himself, had no instrument at hand but the clumsiest, the most lamentable of expedients.
