Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/203

 OF THE COUNTRY OF CULTURE 169

For thus ye speak: 'We are wholly real and without any belief or superstition.' Thus ye give yourselves airs alas, even without having any breasts !

Oh, how could ye believe, ye many-coloured ye who are pictures of whatever hath been believed at any time!

Ye are yourselves living refutations of belief and a breaking of limbs of all thought. Untrustworthy thus I call you, ye real !

All times rave against each other in your minds; aitd the dreams and gossip of all times have been more real than your being awake !

Sterile ye are. Therefore faith is lacking within you. But he who was compelled to create had always his prophesying dreams and prognostics in the stars and believed in belief !

Half-open doors ye are at which grave-diggers wait. And this is your reality : ' Everything deserveth to perish.'

Oh, how ye appear unto me, ye sterile, how meagre in your ribs! And many of you knew that perfectly.

And they said : ' Whilst I was sleeping, a God, I suppose, clandestinely stole something from me ? Verily, enough to form a little woman out of it ! '

' Wonderful is the poverty of my ribs ! ' thus said many present ones.

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