The Portable Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

  The bleeding man laughed, still angry. “What is that to you?” he said and wanted to go on. “Here I am at home and in my realm. Let whoever wants to, ask me; but I certainly won’t answer a bumpkin.”

  “You are wrong,” said Zarathustra, full of pity, and he held him back. “You are wrong. This is not your realm but mine, and here nobody shall come to grief. Call me whatever you like; I am who I must be. I call myself Zarathustra. Well! Up there runs the path to Zarathustra’s cave, which is not far. Do you not want to look after your wounds in my place? Things have gone badly for you in this life, you poor wretch; first the beast bit you and then man stepped on you.”

  When the man who had been stepped on heard Zarathustra’s name he changed completely. “What is happening to me?” he cried out. “Who else matters to me any more in this life but this one man, Zarathustra, and that one beast which lives on blood, the leech? For the leech’s sake I lay here beside this swamp like a fisherman, and my arm, which I had cast, had already been bitten ten times when a still more beautiful leech bit, seeking my blood, Zarathustra himself. O happiness! O miracle! Praised be this day that lured me into this swamp! Praised be the best, the most alive cupper living today, praised be the great leech of the conscience, Zarathustra!”

  Thus spoke the man who had been stepped on; and Zarathustra enjoyed his words and their fine, respectful manner. “Who are you?” he asked and offered him his hand. “There is much between us that remains to be cleared up and cheered up; but even now, it seems to me, the day dawns pure and bright.”

  “I am the conscientious in spirit,” replied the man; “and in matters of the spirit there may well be none stricter, narrower, and harder than I, except he from whom I have learned it, Zarathustra himself.

  “Rather know nothing than half-know much! Rather be a fool on one’s own than a sage according to the opinion of others! I go to the ground—what does it matter whether it be great or small? whether it be called swamp or sky? A hand’s breadth of ground suffices me, provided it is really ground and foundation. A hand’s breadth of ground—on that one can stand. In the conscience of science there is nothing great and nothing small.”

  “Then perhaps you are the man who knows the leech?” Zarathustra asked. “And do you pursue the leech to its ultimate grounds, my conscientious friend?”

  “O Zarathustra,” replied the man who had been stepped on, “that would be an inmensity; how could I presume so much! That of which I am the master and expert is the brain of the leech: that is my world. And it really is a world too. Forgive me that here my pride speaks up, for I have no equal here. That is why I said, ‘Here is my home.’ How long have I been pursuing this one thing, the brain of the leech, lest the slippery truth slip away from me here again! Here is my realm. For its sake I have thrown away everything else; for its sake everything else has become indifferent to me; and close to my knowledge lies my black ignorance.

  “The conscience of my spirit demands of me that I know one thing and nothing else: I loathe all the half in spirit, all the vaporous that hover and rave.

  “Where my honesty ceases, I am blind and I also want to be blind. But where I want to know, I also want to be honest—that is, hard, strict, narrow, cruel, and inexorable.

  “That you, O Zarathustra, once said, ‘Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life,’ that introduced and seduced me to your doctrine. And verily, with my own blood I increased my own knowledge.”

  “As is quite apparent,” Zarathustra interrupted, for the blood still flowed down the bare arm of the conscientious man, ten leeches having bitten deep into it. “O you strange fellow, how much I learn from what is apparent here, namely from you. And perhaps I had better not pour all of it into your strict ears. Well! Here we part. But I should like to find you again. Up there goes the path to my cave: tonight you shall be my dear guest there. To your body too, I should like to make up for Zarathustra’s having stepped on you with his feet: I shall reflect on that. Now, however, a cry of distress urgently calls me away from you.”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra.

  THE MAGICIAN

  1

  But when Zarathustra came around a rock he beheld, not far below on the same path, a man who threw his limbs around like a maniac and finally flopped down on his belly. “Wait!” Zarathustra said to his heart; “that must indeed be the higher man; from him came that terrible cry of distress; let me see if he can still be helped.” But when he ran to the spot where the man lay on the ground he found a trembling old man with vacant eyes; and however Zarathustra exerted himself to help the man to get up on his feet again, it was all in vain. Nor did the unfortunate man seem to notice that anybody was with him; rather he kept looking around with piteous gestures, like one abandoned and forsaken by all the world. At last, however, after many shudders, convulsions, and contortions, he began to moan thus:

  “Who warms me, who loves me still?

  Give hot hands!

  Give a heart as glowing coals!

  Stretched out, shuddering,

  Like something half dead whose feet one warms—

  Shaken, alas, by unknown fevers,

  Shivering with piercing icy frost-arrows,

  Hunted by thee, O thought!

  Unnamable, shrouded, terrible one!

  Thou hunter behind clouds!

  Struck down by thy lightning bolt,

  Thou mocking eye that stares at me from the dark:

  Thus I lie

  Writhing, twisting, tormented

  With all eternal tortures,

  Hit

  By thee, cruelest hunter,

  Thou unknown god!

  Hit deeper!

  Hit once more yet!

  Drive a stake through and break this heart!

  Why this torture

  With blunt-toothed arrows?

  Why dost thou stare again,

  Not yet weary of human agony,

  With gods’ lightning eyes that delight in suffering?

  Thou wouldst not kill,

  Only torture, torture?

  Why torture me,

  Delighted by suffering, thou unknown god?

  Hah! hah! Thou art crawling close?

  In such midnight—

  What dost thou want? Speak!

  Thou art crowding, pressing me—

  Hah! Far too close!

  Away! Away!

  Thou art listening to me breathe,

  Thou art listening to my heart,

  Thou jealous one—

  Jealous of what?

  Away! Away! Why the ladder?

  Wouldst thou enter

  The heart,

  Climb in, deep into my

  Most secret thoughts?

  Shameless one! Unknown thief!

  What wouldst thou steal?

  What wouldst thou gain by listening?

  What wouldst thou gain by torture,

  Thou torturer!

  Thou hangman-god!

  Or should I, doglike,

  Roll before thee?

  Devotedly, frantic, beside myself,

  Wag love to thee?

  In vain! Pierce on,

  Cruelest thorn! No,

  No dog—only thy game am I,

  Cruelest hunter!

  Thy proudest prisoner,

  Thou robber behind clouds!

  Speak at last!

  What wouldst thou, waylayer, from me?

  Thou lightning-shrouded one! Unknown one! Speak,

  What wilt thou, unknown—god?

  What? Ransom?

  Why wilt thou ransom?

  Demand much! Thus my pride advises.

  And make thy speech short! That my other pride advises.

  Hah, hah!

  Me thou wilt have? Me?

  Me—entirely?

  Hah, hah!

  And art torturing me, fool that thou art,

  Torturing my pride?

  Give love to me—who warms me still?

  Who loves me still?—Give hot hands,

>   Give a heart as glowing coals,

  Give me, the loneliest

  Whom ice, alas, sevenfold ice

  Teaches to languish for enemies,

  Even for enemies,

  Give, yes, give wholly,

  Cruelest enemy,

  Give me—thyself!

  Away!

  He himself fled,

  My last, only companion,

  My great enemy,

  My unknown,

  My hangman-god.

  No! Do come back

  With all thy tortures!

  To the last of all that are lonely,

  Oh, come back!

  All my tear-streams run

  Their course to thee;

  And my heart’s final flame—

  Flares up for thee!

  Oh, come back,

  My unknown god! My pain! My last—happiness!”

  2

  At this point, however, Zarathustra could not restrain himself any longer, raised his stick, and started to beat the moaning man with all his might. “Stop it!” he shouted at him furiously. “Stop it, you actor! You counterfeiter! You liar from the bottom! I recognize you well! I’ll warm your legs for you, you wicked magician. I know well how to make things hot for such as you.”

  “Leave off!” the old man said and leaped up from the ground. “Don’t strike any more, Zarathustra! I did all this only as a game. Such things belong to my art; it was you that I wanted to try when I treated you to this tryout. And verily, you have seen through me very well. But you too have given me no small sample of yourself to try out: you are hard, wise Zarathustra. Hard do you hit with your ‘truths’; your stick forces this truth out of me.”

  “Don’t flatter!” replied Zarathustra, still excited and angry, “you actor from the bottom! You are false; why do you talk of truth? You peacock of peacocks, you sea of vanity, what were you playing before me, you wicked magician? In whom was I to believe when you were moaning in this way?”

  “The ascetic of the spirit,” said the old man, “I played him—you yourself once coined this word—the poet and magician who at last turns his spirit against himself, the changed man who freezes to death from his evil science and conscience. And you may as well confess it: it took a long time, O Zarathustra, before you saw through my art and lie. You believed in my distress when you held my head with both your hands; I heard you moan, ‘He has been loved too little, loved too little.’ That I deceived you to that extent made my malice jubilate inside me.”

  “You may have deceived people subtler than I,” Zarathustra said harshly. “I do not guard against deceivers; I have to be without caution; thus my lot wants it. You, however, have to deceive: that far I know you. You always have to be equivocal—tri-, quadri-, quinquevocal. And what you have now confessed, that too was not nearly true enough or false enough to suit me. You wicked counterfeiter, how could you do otherwise? You would rouge even your disease when you show yourself naked to your doctor. In the same way you have just now rouged your lie when you said to me, ‘I did all this only as a game.’ There was seriousness in it too: you are something of an ascetic of the spirit. I solve your riddle: your magic has enchanted everybody, but no lie or cunning is left to you to use against yourself: you are disenchanted for yourself. You have harvested nausea as your one truth. Not a word of yours is genuine any more, except your mouth—namely, the nausea that sticks to your mouth.”

  “Who are you?” cried the old magician at this point, his voice defiant. “Who may speak thus to me, the greatest man alive today?” And a green lightning bolt Bashed from his eye toward Zarathustra. But immediately afterward he changed and said sadly, “O Zarathustra, I am weary of it; my art nauseates me; I am not great—why do I dissemble? But you know it too: I sought greatness. I wanted to represent a great human being and I persuaded many; but this lie went beyond my strength. It is breaking me. O Zarathustra, everything about me is a lie; but that I am breaking—this, my breaking, is genuine.”

  “It does you credit,” said Zarathustra gloomily, looking aside to the ground, “it does you credit that you sought greatness, but it also betrays you. You are not great. You wicked old magician, this is what is best and most honest about you, and this I honor: that you wearied of yourself and said it outright: ‘I am not great.’ In this I honor you as an ascetic of the spirit; and even if it was only a wink and a twinkling, in this one moment you were genuine.

  “But speak, what are you seeking here in my woods and rocks? And lying down on my path, how did you want to try me? In what way were you seeking to test me?” Thus spoke Zarathustra, and his eyes flashed.

  The old magician remained silent for a while, then said, “Did I seek to test you? I—merely seek. O Zarathustra, I seek one who is genuine, right, simple, unequivocal, a man of all honesty, a vessel of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great human being. Do you not know it, Zarathustra? I seek Zarathustra.”

  And at this point there began a long silence between the two. But Zarathustra became deeply absorbed and closed his eyes. Then, however, returning to his partner in the conversation, he seized the hand of the magician and said, full of kindness and cunning, “Well! Up there goes the path; there lies Zarathustra’s cave. There you may seek him whom you would find. And ask my animals for advice, my eagle and my serpent: they shall help you seek. But my cave is large. I myself, to be sure—I have not yet seen a great human being. For what is great, even the eyes of the subtlest today are too coarse. It is the realm of the mob. Many have I seen, swollen and straining, and the people cried, ‘Behold a great man!’ But what good are all bellows? In the end, the wind comes out. In the end, a frog which has puffed itself up too long will burst: the wind comes out. To stab a swollen man in the belly, I call that a fine pastime. Hear it well, little boys!

  “Today belongs to the mob: who could still know what is great and what small? Who could still successfully seek greatness? Only a fool: fools succeed. You seek great human beings, you queer fool? Who taught you that? Is today the time for that? O you wicked seeker, why did you seek to test me?”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra, his heart comforted, and he continued on his way, laughing.

  RETIRED

  Not long, however, after Zarathustra had got away from the magician, he again saw somebody sitting by the side of his path: a tall man in black, with a gaunt pale face; and this man displeased him exceedingly. “Alas!” he said to his heart, “there sits muffled-up melancholy, looking like the tribe of priests: what do they want in my realm? How now? I have scarcely escaped that magician; must another black artist cross my way so soon—some wizard with laying-on of hands, some dark miracle worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-slanderer whom the devil should fetch? But the devil is never where he should be: he always comes too late, this damned dwarf and clubfoot!”

  Thus cursed Zarathustra, impatient in his heart, and he wondered how he might sneak past the black man, looking the other way. But behold, it happened otherwise. For at the same moment the seated man had already spotted him; and not unlike one on whom unexpected good fortune has been thrust, he jumped up and walked toward Zarathustra.

  “Whoever you may be, you wanderer,” he said, “help one who has lost his way, a seeker, an old man who might easily come to grief here. This region is remote and strange to me, and I have heard wild animals howling; and he who might have offered me protection no longer exists himself. I sought the last pious man, a saint and hermit who, alone in his forest, had not yet heard what all the world knows today.”

  “What does all the world know today?” asked Zarathustra. “Perhaps this, that the old god in whom all the world once believed no longer lives?”

  “As you say,” replied the old man sadly. “And I served that old god until his last hour. But now I am retired, without a master, and yet not free, nor ever cheerful except in my memories. That is why I climbed these mountains, that I might again have a festival at last, as is fitting for an old pope and church father—for behold, I am the last
pope—a festival of pious memorizes and divine services. But now he himself is dead, the most pious man, that saint in the forest who constantly praised his god with singing and humming. I did not find him when I found his cave; but there were two wolves inside, howling over his death, for all animals loved him. So I ran away. Had I then come to these woods and mountains in vain? Then my heart decided that I should seek another man, the most pious of all those who do not believe in God—that I should seek Zarathustra!”

  Thus spoke the old man, and he looked with sharp eyes at the man standing before him; but Zarathustra seized the hand of the old pope and long contemplated it with admiration. “Behold, venerable one!” he said then; “what a beautiful long hand! That is the hand of one who has always dispensed blessings. But now it holds him whom you seek, me, Zarathustra. It is I, the godless Zarathustra, who speaks: who is more godless than I, that I may enjoy his instruction?”

  Thus spoke Zarathustra, and with his glances he pierced the thoughts and the thoughts behind the thoughts of the old pope. At last the pope began, “He who loved and possessed him most has also lost him most now; behold, now I myself am probably the more godless of the two of us. But who could rejoice in that?”

  “You served him to the last?” Zarathustra asked thoughtfully after a long silence. “You know how he died? Is it true what they say, that pity strangled him, that he saw how man hung on the cross and that he could not bear it, that love of man became his hell, and in the end his death?”

  The old pope, however, did not answer but looked aside, shy, with a pained and gloomy expression. “Let him go!” Zarathustra said after prolonged reflection, still looking the old man straight in the eye. “Let him go! He is gone. And although it does you credit that you say only good things about him who is now dead, you know as well as I who he was, and that his ways were queer.”