The Portable Nietzsche (45 page)

“I love all that looks bright and speaks honestly. But he—you know it, you old priest, there was something of your manner about him, of the priest's manner: he was equivocal. He was also indistinct. How angry he got with us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood him badly! But why did he not speak more cleanly? And if it was the fault of our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him badly? If there was mud in our ears—well, who put it there? He bungled too much, this potter who had never finished his apprenticeship. But that he wreaked revenge on his pots and creations for having bungled them himself, that was a sin against
good taste
. There is good taste in piety too; and it was this that said in the end, ‘Away with such a god! Rather no god, rather make destiny on one's own, rather be a fool, rather be a god oneself!'”

“What is this I hear?” said the old pope at this point, pricking up his ears. “O Zarathustra, with such disbelief you are more pious than you believe. Some god in you must have converted you to your godlessness. Is it not your piety itself that no longer lets you believe in a god? And your overgreat honesty will yet lead you beyond good and evil too. Behold, what remains to you? You have eyes and hands and mouth, predestined for blessing from all eternity. One does not bless with the hand alone. Near you, although you want to be the most godless, I scent a secret, sacred, pleasant scent of long blessings: it gives me gladness and grief. Let me be your guest, O Zarathustra, for one single night! Nowhere on earth shall I now feel better than with you.”

“Amen! So be it!” said Zarathustra in great astonishment. “Up there goes the way, there lies Zarathustra's cave. I should indeed like to accompany you there myself, you venerable one, for I love all who are pious. But now a cry of distress urgently calls me away from you. In my realm no one shall come to grief; my cave is a good haven. And I wish that I could put everyone who is sad back on firm land and firm legs.

“But who could take
your
melancholy off your shoulders? For that I am too weak. Verily, we might wait long before someone awakens your god again. For this old god lives no more: he is thoroughly dead.”

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

And again Zarathustra's feet ran over mountains and through woods, and his eyes kept seeking, but he whom they wanted to see was nowhere to be seen: the great distressed one who had cried out. All along the way, however, Zarathustra jubilated in his heart and was grateful. “What good things,” he said, “has this day given me to make up for its bad beginning! What strange people have I found to talk with! Now I shall long chew their words like good grains; my teeth shall grind them and crush them small till they flow like milk into my soul.”

But when the path turned around a rock again the scenery changed all at once, and Zarathustra entered a realm of death. Black and red cliffs rose rigidly: no grass, no tree, no bird's voice. For it was a valley that all animals avoided, even the beasts of prey; only a species of ugly fat green snakes came here to die when they grew old. Therefore the shepherds called this valley Snakes' Death.

Zarathustra, however, sank into a black reminiscence, for he felt as if he had stood in this valley once before. And much that was grave weighed on his mind; he walked slowly, and still more slowly, and finally stood still. But when he opened his eyes he saw something sitting by the way, shaped like a human being, yet scarcely like a human being—something inexpressible. And all at once a profound sense of shame overcame Zarathustra for having laid eyes on such a thing: blushing right up to his white hair, he averted his eyes and raised his feet to leave this dreadful place. But at that moment the dead waste land was filled with a noise, for something welled up from the ground, gurgling and rattling, as water gurgles and rattles by night in clogged waterpipes; and at last it became a human voice and human speech—thus:

“Zarathustra! Zarathustra! Guess my riddle! Speak, speak! What is
the revenge against the witness
? I lure you back, here is slippery ice. Take care, take care that your pride does not break its legs here! You think yourself wise, proud Zarathustra. Then guess the riddle, you cracker of hard nuts—the riddle that I am. Speak then: who am I?”

But when Zarathustra had heard these words—what do you suppose happened to his soul?
Pity seized him
; and he sank down all at once, like an oak tree that has long resisted many woodcutters—heavily, suddenly, terrifying even those who had wanted to fell it. But immediately he rose from the ground again, and his face became hard.

“I recognize you well,” he said in a voice of bronze; “
you are the murderer of God!
Let me go. You could not
bear
him who saw
you
—who always saw you through and through, you ugliest man! You took revenge on this witness!”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he wanted to leave; but the inexpressible one seized a corner of his garment and began again to gurgle and seek for words. “Stay!” he said finally. “Stay! Do not pass by! I have guessed what ax struck you to the ground: hail to you, O Zarathustra, that you stand again! You have guessed, I know it well, how he who killed him feels—the murderer of God. Stay! Sit down here with me! It is not for nothing. Whom did I want to reach, if not you? Stay! Sit down! But do not look at me! In that way honor my ugliness! They persecute me; now
you
are my last refuge.
Not
with their hatred, not with their catchpoles: I would mock such persecution and be proud and glad of it!

“Has not all success hitherto been with the wellpersecuted? And whoever persecutes well, learns readily how to
follow;
for he is used to going after somebody else. But it is their
pity
—it is their pity that I flee, fleeing to you. O Zarathustra, protect me, you my last refuge, the only one who has solved my riddle: you guessed how he who killed him feels. Stay! And if you would go, you impatient one, do not go the way I came.
That
way is bad. Are you angry with me that I have even now stammered too long—and even advise you? But know, it is I, the ugliest man, who also has the largest and heaviest feet. Where I have gone, the way is bad. I tread all ways till they are dead and ruined.

“But that you passed me by, silent; that you blushed, I saw it well: that is how I recognized you as Zarathustra. Everyone else would have thrown his alms to me, his pity, with his eyes and words. But for that I am not beggar enough, as you guessed; for that I am too rich, rich in what is great, in what is terrible, in what is ugliest, in what is most inexpressible. Your shame, Zarathustra, honored me! With difficulty I escaped the throng of the pitying, to find the only one today who teaches, ‘Pity is obtrusive'—you, O Zarathustra. Whether it be a god's pity or man's—pity offends the sense of shame. And to be unwilling to help can be nobler than that virtue which jumps to help.

“But today that is called virtue itself among all the little people—pity. They have no respect for great misfortune, for great ugliness, for great failure. Over this multitude I look away as a dog looks away over the backs of teeming flocks of sheep. They are little gray people, full of good wool and good will. As a heron looks away contemptuously over shallow ponds, its head leaning back, thus I look away over the teeming mass of gray little waves and wills and souls. Too long have we conceded to them that they are right, these little people; so that in the end we have also conceded them might. Now they teach: ‘Good is only what little people call good.'

“And today ‘truth' is what the preacher said, who himself came from among them, that queer saint and advocate of the little people who bore witness about himself: ‘I am the truth.' This immodest fellow has long given the little people swelled heads—he who taught no small error when he taught, ‘I am the truth.' Has an immodest fellow ever been answered more politely? You, however, O Zarathustra, passed him by and said, “No! No! Three times no!' You warned against his error, you, as the first, warned against pity—not all, not none, but you and your kind.

“You are ashamed of the shame of the great sufferer; and verily, when you say, ‘From pity, a great cloud approaches; beware, O men!'; when you teach, ‘All creators are hard, all great love is over and above its pity'—O Zarathustra, how well you seem to me to understand storm signs. But you—warn yourself also against
your
pity. For many are on their way to you, many who are suffering, doubting, despairing, drowning, freezing. And I also warn you against myself. You guessed my best, my worst riddle: myself and what I did. I know the ax that fells you.

“But he
had
to die: he saw with eyes that saw everything; he saw man's depths and ultimate grounds, all his concealed disgrace and ugliness. His pity knew no shame: he crawled into my dirtiest nooks. This most curious, overobtrusive, overpitying one had to die. He always saw me: on such a witness I wanted to have revenge or not live myself. The god who saw everything,
even man
—this god had to die! Man cannot bear it that such a witness should live.”

Thus spoke the ugliest man. But Zarathustra rose and was about to leave, for he felt frozen down to his very entrails. “You inexpressible one,” he said, “you have warned me against
your
way. In thanks I shall praise mine to you. Behold, up there lies Zarathustra's cave. My cave is large and deep and has many nooks; even the most hidden can find a hiding-place there. And close by there are a hundred dens and lodges for crawling, fluttering, and jumping beasts. You self-exiled exile, would you not live among men and men's pity? Well then! Do as I do. Thus you also learn from me; only the doer learns. And speak first of all to my animals. The proudest animal and the wisest animal—they should be the right counselors for the two of us.”

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he went his way, still more reflectively and slowly than before; for he asked himself much, and he did not know how to answer himself readily. “How poor man is after all,” he thought in his heart; “how ugly, how wheezing, how full of hidden shame! I have been told that man loves himself: ah, how great must this self-love be! How much contempt stands against it! This fellow too loved himself, even as he despised himself: a great lover he seems to me, and a great despiser. None have I found yet who despised himself more deeply: that too is a kind of height. Alas, was he perhaps the higher man whose cry I heard? I love the great despisers. Man, however, is something that must be overcome.”

When Zarathustra had left the ugliest man, he felt frozen and lonely: for much that was cold and lonely passed through his mind and made his limbs too feel colder. But as he climbed on and on, up and down, now past green pastures, then again over wild stony places where an impatient brook might once have made its bed, all at once he felt warmer and more cheerful again.

“What happened to me?” he asked himself. “Something warm and alive refreshes me, something that must be near me. Even now I am less alone; unknown companions and brothers roam about me; their warm breath touches my soul.”

But when he looked around to find those who had comforted his loneliness, behold, they were cows, standing together on a knoll; their proximity and smell had warmed his heart. These cows, however, seemed to be listening eagerly to a speaker and did not heed him that was approaching. But when Zarathustra had come quite close to them, he heard distinctly that a human voice was speaking in the middle of the herd; and they had evidently all turned their heads toward the speaker.

Thereupon Zarathustra jumped up eagerly and pushed the animals apart, for he was afraid that somebody had suffered some harm here, which the pity of cows could scarcely cure. But he was wrong, for behold, there sat a man on the ground, and he seemed to be urging the animals to have no fear of him, a peaceful man and sermonizer on the mount out of whose eyes goodness itself was preaching. “What do you seek here?” shouted Zarathustra, amazed.

“What do I seek here?” he replied. “The same thing you are seeking, you disturber of the peace: happiness on earth. But I want to learn that from these cows. For, you know, I have already been urging them half the morning, and just now they wanted to tell me. Why do you disturb them?

“Except we turn back and become as cows, we shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. For we ought to learn one thing from them: chewing the cud. And verily, what would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and did not learn this one thing: chewing the cud! He would not get rid of his melancholy—his great melancholy; but today that is called nausea. Who today does not have his heart, mouth, and eyes full of nausea? You too! You tool But behold these cows!”

Thus spoke the sermonizer on the mount, and then he turned his own eyes toward Zarathustra, for until then they had dwelt lovingly on the cows. But then his eyes changed. “Who is this to whom I am talking?” he cried, startled, and jumped up from the ground. “This is the man without nausea, this is Zarathustra himself, the man who overcame the great nausea; this is the eye, this is the mouth, this is the heart of Zarathustra himself.” And as he spoke thus, he kissed the hands of the man to whom he was talking, and his eyes welled over, and he behaved exactly as one to whom a precious gift and treasure falls unexpectedly from the sky. But the cows watched all this with amazement.

“Do not speak of me, you who are so strange, so lovely!” Zarathustra said and restrained his tender affection. “First speak to me of yourself. Are you not the voluntary beggar who once threw away great riches? Who was ashamed of his riches and of the rich, and fled to the poorest to give them his fullness and his heart? But they did not accept him.”

“But they did not accept me,” said the voluntary beggar; “you know it. So I finally went to the animals and to these cows.”