The professor, misinterpreting the silent agreement of the Spaniard who until then had been listening with such a hostile smile, added: 

“Now is the time to try out in France the German culture, implanting it there as conquerors.”

Here Argensola interrupted, “And what if there is no such thing as German culture, as a celebrated Teuton says?” It had become necessary to contradict this pedant who had become insufferable with his egotism.  Hartrott almost jumped from his chair on hearing such a doubt.

“What German is that?”

“Nietzsche.”

The professor looked at him pityingly.  Nietzsche had said to mankind, “Be harsh!” affirming that “a righteous war sanctifies every cause.”  He had exalted Bismarck; he had taken part in the war of ’70; he was glorifying Germany when he spoke of “the smiling lion,” and “the blond beast.”  But Argensola listened with the tranquillity of one sure of his ground.  Oh, hours of placid reading near the studio chimney, listening to the rain beating against the pane! . . .

“The philosopher did say that,” he admitted, “and he said many other very different things, like all great thinkers.  His doctrine is one of pride, but of individual pride, not that of a nation or race.  He always spoke against ‘the insidious fallacy of race.’”

Argensola recalled his philosophy word for word.  Culture, according to Nietzsche, was “unity of style in all the manifestations of life.”  Science did not necessarily include culture.  Great knowledge might be accompanied with great barbarity, by the absence of style or by the chaotic confusion of all styles.  Germany, according to the philosopher, had no genuine culture owing to its lack of style.  “The French,” he had said, “were at the head of an authentic and fruitful culture, whatever their valor might be, and until now everybody had drawn upon it.”  Their hatreds were concentrated within their own country.  “I cannot endure Germany.  The spirit of servility and pettiness penetrates everywhere. . . .  I believe only in French culture, and what the rest of Europe calls culture appears to me to be a mistake.  The few individual cases of lofty culture that I met in Germany were of French origin.”

“You know,” continued Argensola, “that in quarrelling with Wagner about the excess of Germanism in his art, Nietzsche proclaimed the necessity of mediterraneanizing music.  His ideal was a culture for all Europe, but with a Latin base.”

Julius von Hartrott replied most disdainfully to this, repeating the Spaniard’s very words.  Men who thought much said many things.  Besides, Nietzsche was a poet, completely demented at his death, and was no authority among the University sages.  His fame had only been recognized in foreign lands. . . .  And he paid no further attention to the youth, ignoring him as though he had evaporated into thin air after his presumption.  All the professor’s attention was now concentrated on Desnoyers.