And I pressed the key, and pulled at the gate, and exerted myself. But not a finger’s-breadth was it yet open:
Then did a roaring wind tear the folds apart: whistling, whizzing, and piercing, it threw to me a black coffin.
And in the roaring and whistling and whizzing, the coffin burst open, and spouted out a thousand peals of laughter.
And a thousand caricatures of children, angels, owls, fools, and child-sized butterflies laughed and mocked, and roared at me.
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Fearfully was I terrified thereby: it prostrated me. And I cried with horror as I ne’er cried before.
But my own crying awoke me:- and I came to myself.-
Thus did Zarathustra relate his dream, and then was silent: for as yet he knew not the interpretation thereof. But the disciple whom he loved most arose quickly, seized Zarathustra’s hand, and said:
«Your life itself interprets to us this dream, O Zarathustra!
Are you not yourself the wind with shrill whistling, which bursts open the gates of the fortress of Death?
Are you not yourself the coffin full of many-hued malices and angel-caricatures of life?
Like a thousand peals of children’s laughter comes Zarathustra into all sepulchres, laughing at those night-watchmen and grave-guardians, and whoever else rattles with sinister keys.
With your laughter will you frighten and prostrate them: fainting and recovering will you demonstrate your power over them.
And when the long twilight comes and the mortal weariness, even then will you not disappear from our firmament, you advocate of life!
New stars have you made us see, and new nocturnal glories: verily, laughter itself have you spread out over us like a many-hued canopy.
Now will children’s laughter ever from coffins flow; now will a strong wind ever come victoriously to all mortal weariness: of this you are yourself the pledge and the prophet!
They themselves did you dream, your enemies: that was your sorest dream.
But as you awoke from them and came to yourself, so shall they awaken from themselves- and come to you!
Thus spoke the disciple; and all the others then thronged around Zarathustra, grasped him by the hands, and tried to persuade him to leave his bed and his sadness, and return to them. Zarathustra, however, sat upright on his couch, with an absent look. Like one returning from long foreign sojourn did he look on his disciples, and examined their fea-tures; but still he knew them not. When, however, they raised him, and set him upon his feet, behold, all on a sudden his eye changed; he under-stood everything that had happened, stroked his beard, and said with a strong voice:
«Well! this has just its time; but see to it, my disciples, that we have a good repast; and without delay! Thus do I mean to make amends for bad dreams!
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The soothsayer, however, shall eat and drink at my side: and verily, I will yet show him a sea in which he can drown himself!»-
Thus spoke Zarathustra. Then did he gaze long into the face of the dis-ciple who had been the dream-interpreter, and shook his head.-
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Chapter 20 Redemption
WHEN Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spoke thus to him:
«Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from you, and acquire faith in your teaching: but for them to believe fully in you, one thing is still needful- you must first of all convince us cripples! Here have you now a fine selection, and verily, an opportunity with more than one fore-lock! The blind can you heal, and make the lame run; and from him who has too much behind, could you well, also, take away a little;- that, I think, would be the right method to make the cripples believe in Zarathustra!»
Zarathustra, however, answered thus to him who so spoke: When one takes his hump from the hunchback, then does one take from him his spirit- so do the people teach. And when one gives the blind man eyes, then does he see too many bad things on the earth: so that he curses him who healed him. He, however, who makes the lame man run, inflicts upon him the greatest injury; for hardly can he run, when his vices run away with him- so do the people teach concerning cripples. And why should not Zarathustra also learn from the people, when the people learn from Zarathustra?
It is, however, the small thing to me since I have been amongst men, to see one person lacking an eye, another an ear, and a third a leg, and that others have lost the tongue, or the nose, or the head.
I see and have seen worse things, and divers things so hideous, that I should neither like to speak of all matters, nor even keep silent about some of them: namely, men who lack everything, except that they have too much of one thing- men who are nothing more than a big eye, or a big mouth, or a big belly, or something else big,- reversed cripples, I call such men.
And when I came out of my solitude, and for the first time passed over this bridge, then I could not trust my eyes, but looked again and again,
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and said at last: «That is an ear! An ear as big as a man!» I looked still more attentively- and actually there did move under the ear something that was pitiably small and poor and slim. And in truth this immense ear was perched on a small thin stalk- the stalk, however, was a man! A per-son putting a glass to his eyes, could even recognize further a small envi-ous countenance, and also that a bloated little soul dangled at the stalk. The people told me, however, that the big ear was not only a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never believed in the people when they spoke of great men- and I hold to my belief that it was a reversed cripple, who had too little of everything, and too much of one thing.
When Zarathustra had spoken thus to the hunchback, and to those of whom the hunchback was the mouthpiece and advocate, then did he turn to his disciples in profound dejection, and said:
My friends, I walk amongst men as amongst the fragments and limbs of human beings!
This is the terrible thing to my eye, that I find man broken up, and scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.
And when my eye flees from the present to the bygone, it finds ever the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances- but no men!
The present and the bygone upon earth- ah! my friends- that is my most unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a seer of what is to come.
A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the future-and alas! also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all that is Zarathustra.
And you also asked yourselves often: «Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall he be called by us?» And like me, did you give yourselves questions for answers.
Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A har-vest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one?
Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A good one? Or an evil one?
I walk amongst men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate.
And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.
And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the com-poser, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!
To redeem what is past, and to transform every «It was» into «Thus would I have it!»- that only do I call redemption!
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Will- so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught you, my friends! But now learn this likewise: the Will itself is still a prisoner.
Willing emancipates: but what is that called which still puts the eman-cipator in chains?
«It was»: thus is the Will’s teeth-gnashing and most lonesome tribula-tion called. Impotent towards what has been done- it is a malicious spec-tator of all that is past.
Not backward can the Will will; that it cannot break time and time’s desire- that is the Will’s most lonesome tribulation.
Willing emancipates: what does Willing itself create in order to get free from its tribulation and mock at its prison?
Ah, a fool becomes every prisoner! Foolishly delivers itself also the im-prisoned Will.
That time does not run backward- that is its animosity: «That which was»: so is the stone which it cannot roll called.
And thus does it roll stones out of animosity and ill-humor, and takes revenge on whatever does not, like it, feel rage and ill-humor.
Thus did the Will, the emancipator, become a torturer; and on all that is capable of suffering it takes revenge, because it cannot go backward.
This, yes, this alone is revenge itself: the Will’s antipathy to time, and its «It was.»
A great folly dwells in our Will; and it became a curse to all humanity, that this folly acquired spirit!
The spirit of revenge: my friends, that has hitherto been man’s best contemplation; and where there
