The Portable Nietzsche (30 page)

Thus Zarathustra heard a soothsayer speak, and the prophecy touched his heart and changed him. He walked about sad and weary; and he became like those of whom the
soothsayer had
spoken.

“Verily,” he said to his disciples, “little is lacking and this long twilight will come. Alas, how shall I save my light through it? It must not suffocate in this sadness. For it shall be a light for distant worlds and even more distant nights.”

Thus grieved in his heart, Zarathustra walked about; and for three days he took neither food nor drink, had no rest, and lost his speech. At last he fell into a deep sleep. But his disciples sat around him in long night watches and waited with great concern for him to wake and speak again and recover from his melancholy.

And this is the speech of Zarathustra when he awoke; but his voice came to his disciples as if from a great distance:

“Listen to the dream which I dreamed, my friends, and help me guess its meaning. This dream is still a riddle to me; its meaning is concealed in it and imprisoned and does not yet soar above it with unfettered wings.

“I had turned my back on all life, thus I dreamed. I had become a night watchman and a guardian of tombs upon the lonely mountain castle of death. Up there I guarded his coffins: the musty vaults were full of such marks of triumph. Life that had been overcome, looked at me out of glass coffins. I breathed the odor of dusty eternities: sultry and dusty lay my soul. And who could have aired his soul there?

“The brightness of midnight was always about me; loneliness crouched next to it; and as a third, death-rattle silence, the worst of my friends. I had keys, the rustiest of all keys; and I knew how to use them to open the most creaking of all gates. Like a wickedly angry croaking, the sound ran through the long corridors when the gate's wings moved: fiendishly cried this bird, ferocious at being awakened. Yet still more terrible and heart-constricting was the moment when silence returned and it grew quiet about me, and I sat alone in this treacherous silence.

“Thus time passed and crawled, if time still existed—how should I know? But eventually that happened which awakened me. Thrice, strokes struck at the gate like thunder; the vaults echoed and howled thrice; then I went to the gate. ‘Alpa,' I cried, ‘who is carrying his ashes up the mountain? Alpa! Alpa! Who is carrying his ashes up the mountain?' And I pressed the key and tried to lift the gate and exerted myself; but still it did not give an inch. Then a roaring wind tore its wings apart; whistling, shrilling, and piercing, it cast up a black coffin before me.

“And amid the roaring and whistling and shrilling the coffin burst and spewed out a thousandfold laughter. And from a thousand grimaces of children, angels, owls, fools, and butterflies as big as children, it laughed and mocked and roared at me. Then I was terribly frightened; it threw me to the ground. And I cried in horror as I have never cried. And my own cry awakened me—and I came to my senses.”

Thus Zarathustra told his dream and then became silent; for as yet he did not know the interpretation of his dream. But the disciple whom he loved most rose quickly, took Zarathustra's hand, and said:

“Your life itself interprets this dream for us, O Zarathustra. Are you not yourself the wind with the shrill whistling that tears open the gates of the castles of death? Are you not yourself the coffin full of colorful sarcasms and the angelic grimaces of life? Verily, like a thousandfold children's laughter Zarathustra enters all death chambers, laughing at all the night watchmen and guardians of tombs and at whoever else is rattling with gloomy keys. You will frighten and prostrate them with your laughter; and your power over them will make them faint and wake them. And even when the long twilight and the weariness of death come, you will not set in our sky, you advocate of life. New stars you have let us see, and new wonders of the night; verily, laughter itself you have spread over us like a colorful tent. Henceforth children's laughter will well forth from all coffins; henceforth a strong wind will come triumphantly to all weariness of death: of this you yourself are our surety and soothsayer. Verily,
this is what you dreamed of:
your enemies. That was your hardest dream. But as you woke from them and came to your senses, thus they shall awaken from themselves—and come to you.”

Thus spoke the disciple; and all the others crowded around Zarathustra and took hold of his hands and wanted to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness and to return to them. But Zarathustra sat erect on his resting place with a strange look in his eyes. Like one coming home from a long sojourn in strange lands, he looked at his disciples and examined their faces; and as yet he did not recognize them. But when they lifted him up and put him on his feet, behold, his eyes suddenly changed; he comprehended all that had happened, stroked his beard, and said in a strong voice:

“Now then, there is a time for this too. But see to it, my disciples, that we shall have a good meal, and soon. Thus I plan to atone for bad dreams. The soothsayer, however, shall eat and drink by my side; and verily, I shall show him a sea in which he can drown.”

Thus spoke Zarathustra. But then he looked a long time into the face of the disciple who had played the dream interpreter and he shook his head.

When Zarathustra crossed over the great bridge one day the cripples and beggars surrounded him, and a hunchback spoke to him thus: “Behold, Zarathustra. The people too learn from you and come to believe in your doctrine; but before they will believe you entirely one thing is still needed: you must first persuade us cripples. Now here you have a fine selection and, verily, an opportunity with more than one handle. You can heal the blind and make the lame walk; and from him who has too much behind him you could perhaps take away a little. That, I think, would be the right way to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra.”

But Zarathustra replied thus to the man who had spoken: “When one takes away the hump from the hunchback one takes away his spirit—thus teach the people. And when one restores his eyes to the blind man he sees too many wicked things on earth, and he will curse whoever healed him. But whoever makes the lame walk does him the greatest harm: for when he can walk his vices run away with him—thus teach the people about cripples. And why should Zarathustra not learn from the people when the people learn from Zarathustra?

“But this is what matters least to me since I have been among men: to see that this one lacks an eye and that one an ear and a third a leg, while there are others who have lost their tongues or their noses or their heads. I see, and have seen, what is worse, and many things so vile that I do not want to speak of everything; and concerning some things I do not even like to be silent: for there are human beings who lack everything, except one thing of which they have too much—human beings who are nothing but a big eye or a big mouth or a big belly or anything at all that is big. Inverse cripples I call them.

“And when I came out of my solitude and crossed over this bridge for the first time I did not trust my eyes and looked and looked again, and said at last, ‘An ear! An ear as big as a man!' I looked still more closely—and indeed, underneath the ear something was moving, something pitifully small and wretched and slender. And, no doubt of it, the tremendous ear was attached to a small, thin stalk—but this stalk was a human being! If one used a magnifying glass one could even recognize a tiny envious face; also, that a bloated little soul was dangling from the stalk. The people, however, told me that this great ear was not only a human being, but a great one, a genius. But I never believed the people when they spoke of great men; and I maintained my belief that it was an inverse cripple who had too little of everything and too much of one thing.”

When Zarathustra had spoken thus to the hunchback and to those whose mouthpiece and advocate the hunchback was, he turned to his disciples in profound dismay and said: “Verily, my friends, I walk among men as among the fragments and limbs of men. This is what is terrible for my eyes, that I find man in ruins and scattered as over a battlefield or a butcher-field. And when my eyes flee from the now to the past, they always find the same: fragments and limbs and dreadful accidents—but no human beings.

“The now and the past on earth—alas, my friends, that is what
I
find most unendurable; and I should not know how to live if I were not also a seer of that which must come. A seer, a willer, a creator, a future himself and a bridge to the future—and alas, also, as it were, a cripple at this bridge: all this is Zarathustra.

“And you too have often asked yourselves, ‘Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall be call him?' And, like myself, you replied to yourselves with questions. Is he a promiser? or a fulfiller? A conqueror? or an inheritor? An autumn? or a plowshare? A physician? or one who has recovered? Is he a poet? or truthful? A liberator? or a tamer? good? or evil?

“I walk among men as among the fragments of the future—that future which I envisage. And this is all my creating and striving, that I create and carry together into One what is fragment and riddle and dreadful accident. And how could I bear to be a man if man were not also a creator and guesser of riddles and redeemer of accidents?

“To redeem those who lived in the past and to re-create all ‘it was' into a ‘thus I willed it'—that alone should I call redemption. Will—that is the name of the liberator and joy-bringer; thus I taught you, my friends. But now learn this too: the will itself is still a prisoner. Willing liberates; but what is it that puts even the liberator himself in fetters? ‘It was'—that is the name of the will's gnashing of teeth and most secret melancholy. Powerless against what has been done, he is an angry spectator of all that is past. The will cannot will backwards; and that he cannot break time and time's covetousness, that is the will's loneliest melancholy.

“Willing liberates; what means does the will devise for himself to get rid of his melancholy and to mock his dungeon? Alas, every prisoner becomes a fool; and the imprisoned will redeems himself foolishly. That time does not run backwards, that is his wrath; ‘that which was' is the name of the stone he cannot move. And so he moves stones out of wrath and displeasure, and he wreaks revenge on whatever does not feel wrath and displeasure as he does. Thus the will, the liberator, took to hurting; and on all who can suffer he wreaks revenge for his inability to go backwards. This, indeed this alone, is what
revenge
is: the will's ill will against time and its ‘it was.'

“Verily, a great folly dwells in our will; and it has become a curse for everything human that this folly has acquired spirit.

“The spirit of revenge,
my friends, has so far been the subject of man's best reflection; and where there was suffering, one always wanted punishment too.

“For ‘punishment' is what revenge calls itself; with a. hypocritical lie it creates a good conscience for itself.

“Because there is suffering in those who will, inasmuch as they cannot will backwards, willing itself and all life were supposed to be—a punishment. And now cloud upon cloud rolled over the spirit, until eventually madness preached, ‘Everything passes away; therefore everything deserves to pass away. And this too is justice, this law of time that it must devour its children.' Thus preached madness.

“ ‘Things are ordered morally according to justice and punishment. Alas, where is redemption from the flux of things and from the punishment called existence?' Thus preached madness.

“ ‘Can there be redemption if there is eternal justice? Alas, the stone
It was
cannot be moved: all punishments must be eternal too.' Thus preached madness.

“ ‘No deed can be annihilated: how could it be undone by punishment? This, this is what is eternal in the punishment called existence, that existence must eternally become deed and guilt again. Unless the will should at last redeem himself, and willing should become not willing.' But, my brothers, you know this. fable of madness.

“I led you away from these fables when I taught you. ‘The will is a creator.' All ‘it was' is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful accident—until the creative will says to it, ‘But thus I willed it.' Until the creative will says to it, ‘But thus I will it; thus shall I will it.'

“But has the will yet spoken thus? And when will that happen? Has the will been unharnessed yet from his own folly? Has the will yet become his own redeemer and joy-bringer? Has he unlearned the spirit of revenge and all gnashing of teeth? And who taught him reconciliation with time and something higher than any reconciliation? For that will which is the will to power must will something higher than any reconciliation; but how shall this be brought about? Who could teach him also to will backwards?”

 

At this point in his speech it happened that Zarathustra suddenly stopped and looked altogether like one who has received a severe shock. Appalled, he looked at his disciples; his eyes pierced their thoughts and the thoughts behind their thoughts as with arrows. But after a little while he laughed again and, pacified, he said: “It is difficult to live with people because silence is so difficult. Especially for one who is garrulous.”

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

The hunchback, however, had listened to this discourse and covered his face the while; but when he heard Zarathustra laugh he looked up curiously and said slowly: “But why does Zarathustra speak otherwise to us than to his disciples?”

Zarathustra answered: “What is surprising in that? With hunchbacks one may well speak in a hunchbacked way.”

“All right,” said the hunchback; “and one may well tell pupils tales out of school. But why does Zarathustra speak otherwise to his pupils than to himself?”