And it is also a world! Forgive it, however, that my pride here findeth expression, for here I have not mine equal. Therefore said I: ‘here am I at home.’
How long have I investigated this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that here the slippery truth might no longer slip from me! Here is MY domain!
—For the sake of this did I cast everything else aside, for the sake of this did everything else become indifferent to me; and close beside my knowledge lieth my black ignorance.
My spiritual conscience requireth from me that it should be so—that I should know one thing, and not know all else: they are a loathing unto me, all the semi-spiritual, all the hazy, hovering, and visionary.
Where mine honesty ceaseth, there am I blind, and want also to be blind. Where I want to know, however, there want I also to be honest—namely, severe, rigorous, restricted, cruel and inexorable.
Because THOU once saidest, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life’;—that led and allured me to thy doctrine. And verily, with mine own blood have I increased mine own knowledge!”
—“As the evidence indicateth,” broke in Zarathustra; for still was the blood flowing down on the naked arm of the conscientious one. For there had ten leeches bitten into it.
“O thou strange fellow, how much doth this very evidence teach me—namely, thou thyself! And not all, perhaps, might I pour into thy rigorous ear!
Well then! We part here! But I would fain find thee again. Up thither is the way to my cave: to-night shalt thou there be my welcome guest!
Fain would I also make amends to thy body for Zarathustra treading upon thee with his feet: I think about that. Just now, however, a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from thee.”
Thus spake Zarathustra.
LXV. The Magician.
But thou thyself—hast given me no small proof of thyself: thou art HARD, thou wise Zarathustra! Hard strikest thou with thy ‘truths,’ thy cudgel forceth from me—THIS truth!”
—“Flatter not,” answered Zarathustra, still excited and frowning, “thou stage-player from the heart! Thou art false: why speakest thou—of truth!
Thou peacock of peacocks, thou sea of vanity; WHAT didst thou represent before me, thou evil magician; WHOM was I meant to believe in when thou wailedst in such wise?”
“THE PENITENT IN SPIRIT,” said the old man, “it was him—I represented; thou thyself once devisedst this expression—
—The poet and magician who at last turneth his spirit against himself, the transformed one who freezeth to death by his bad science and conscience.
And just acknowledge it: it was long, O Zarathustra, before thou discoveredst my trick and lie! Thou BELIEVEDST in my distress when thou heldest my head with both thy hands,—
—I heard thee lament ‘we have loved him too little, loved him too little!’ Because I so far deceived thee, my wickedness rejoiced in me.”
“Thou mayest have deceived subtler ones than I,” said Zarathustra sternly. “I am not on my guard against deceivers; I HAVE TO BE without precaution: so willeth my lot.
Thou, however,—MUST deceive: so far do I know thee! Thou must ever be equivocal, trivocal, quadrivocal, and quinquivocal! Even what thou hast now confessed, is not nearly true enough nor false enough for me!
Thou bad false coiner, how couldst thou do otherwise! Thy very malady wouldst thou whitewash if thou showed thyself naked to thy physician.
Thus didst thou whitewash thy lie before me when thou saidst: ‘I did so ONLY for amusement!’ There was also SERIOUSNESS therein, thou ART something of a penitent-in-spirit!
I divine thee well: thou hast become the enchanter of all the world; but for thyself thou hast no lie or artifice left,—thou art disenchanted to thyself!
Thou hast reaped disgust as thy one truth. No word in thee is any longer genuine, but thy mouth is so: that is to say, the disgust that cleaveth unto thy mouth.”—
—“Who art thou at all!” cried here the old magician with defiant voice, “who dareth to speak thus unto ME, the greatest man now living?”—and a green flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra. But immediately after he changed, and said sadly:
“O Zarathustra, I am weary of it, I am disgusted with mine arts, I am not GREAT, why do I dissemble! But thou knowest it well—I sought for greatness!
A great man I wanted to appear, and persuaded many; but the lie hath been beyond my power. On it do I collapse.
O Zarathustra, everything is a lie in me; but that I collapse—this my collapsing is GENUINE!”—
“It honoureth thee,” said Zarathustra gloomily, looking down with sidelong glance, “it honoureth thee that thou soughtest for greatness, but it betrayeth thee also. Thou art not great.
Thou bad old magician, THAT is the best and the honestest thing I honour in thee, that thou hast become weary of thyself, and hast expressed it: ‘I am not great.’
THEREIN do I honour thee as a penitent-in-spirit, and although only for the twinkling of an eye, in that one moment wast thou—genuine.
But tell me, what seekest thou here in MY forests and rocks? And if thou hast put thyself in MY way, what proof of me wouldst thou have?—
—Wherein didst thou put ME to the test?”
Thus spake Zarathustra, and his eyes sparkled. But the old magician kept silence for a while; then said he: “Did I put thee to the test? I—seek only.
O Zarathustra, I seek a genuine one, a right one, a simple one, an unequivocal one, a man of perfect honesty, a vessel of wisdom, a saint of knowledge, a great man!
Knowest thou it not, O Zarathustra? I SEEK ZARATHUSTRA.”
—And here there arose a long silence between them: Zarathustra, however, became profoundly absorbed in thought, so that he shut his eyes. But afterwards coming back to the situation, he grasped the hand of the magician, and said, full of politeness and policy:
“Well! Up thither leadeth the way, there is the cave of Zarathustra. In it mayest thou seek him whom thou wouldst fain find.
And ask counsel of mine