Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/294

 26O THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, III

��'We have become pious once more' these apos- tates confess ; and some of them are too cowardly to confess that.

Into their eye I gaze ; into their face and into the blushing of their cheeks I tell it : ' You are such as pray again ! '

But it is a shame to pray ! Not for all, but for thee and me and him who hath his conscience in his head. For thee it is a shame to pray !

Thou knowest it well : thy cowardly devil within thee who would fain fold his hands and lay them in his lap and have things made easier .this cowardly devil persuadeth thee ' there is a God ' !

Thereby thou belongest unto that kin that fear the light, that cannot find rest in the light. Now daily thou must put thy head deeper into night and damp !

And, verily, thou chosest the hour well ; for just now the moths have swarmed out again. The hour hath come for all folk that fear the light, the hour of even and rest, when they do not 'rest.'

I hear it and smell it : their hour hath come for hunting and procession ; true, not for the wild hunts- man, but for a hunting tame, lame, snuffling, a hunt- ing of eavesdroppers and secret praying ones

For a hunting of soulbreathing sneaks. All mouse- traps for hearts have been set once more ! And

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