Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/351

 THE CONVALESCENT ONE 317

every Here rolleth the ball There. The midst is everywhere. Crooked is the path of eternity."

" O ye buffoons and barrel-organs," answered Zara- thustra and smiled again, "how well ye know what had to be done in seven days

And how that monster crept into my throat and choked me ! But I bit its head off and spat it away from me.

And ye ye have already made out of it a barrel- organ song ? But now I lie here, weary from that biting and spitting away, sick still with mine own salvation.

And ye were the spectators of all that? O mine animals, are even ye cruel ? Did ye like to look at my great pain, as men do ? For man is the cruellest animal.

When gazing at tragedies, bull-fights and crucifix- ions, he hath hitherto felt happier than at any other time on earth. And when he invented hell for him- self, lo, hell was his heaven upon earth.

When the great man crieth, swiftly the small man runneth thither. And his tongue hangeth out of his throat from lustfulness. But he calleth it his 'pity.'

The small man, in particular the poet, how eagerly doth he in words accuse life ! Hearken unto him, but fail not to hear the lust which is contained in all that accusing !

Such accusers of life they are overcome by life with a blinking of the eye. ' Thou lovest me ? ' saith

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