Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/416

 382 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, IV

he felt as though he had stood in this valley once before. And many heavy things lay upon his mind, so that he walked slowly and even more slowly, and finally stood still. Then, suddenly, opening his eyes, he saw sitting on the wayside a something shaped like a man, but scarcely like a man, a something



unutterable. And straightway Zarathustra was seized by a great shame for having cast his eyes upon such a thing. Blushing up unto his white hair he turned his look aside and lifted his foot to leave that evil spot. But then the dead desert took voice. For from the ground something gushed up gurgling and rattling, as water in the night gurgleth and rattleth through stopped water-pipes. And at last that something de- veloped into a human voice and a human speech which sounded thus :

" Zarathustra ! Zarathustra ! read my riddle ! Speak, speak ! What is the revenge on the witness !

I tempt thee to return. Here is smooth ice! See unto it, see unto it, that thy pride do not here break its legs !

Thou seemest wise unto thyself, O proud Zara- thustra ! Read the riddle, read it, thou hard cracker of nuts, the riddle which I am! Say, say: who am I?"

But when Zarathustra had heard these words, what think ye happened then unto his soul ? Pity attacked him. And all at once he fell down like an

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