Fifth Summer in Sils Maria

The appearance of Beyond Good and Evil found Nietzsche once again in Sils Maria. Arriving on June 30, 1886, he would stay, as usual, until the end of September. Though the place was becoming too crowded with middle-class tourists for his liking – by August he records the unwelcome presence of ten professors, four, including himself, in the Durisch house alone – he could find no better way of supporting the ‘permanent, mild winter’ he believed his health required (the ‘bland weather cure’, we might call it). For company he had his usual circle of women, the two Emily Fynns, Countess Mansuroff, and, on a more intellectual level, Helen Zimmern. Meta von Salis visited for two days, together with her mother and her friend (and lover) Hedwig Kym. Having taken her place at the communal dining table, Meta recalls,