Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/50

 l6 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, I

Haunted is human life and yet meaningless : a buffoon may be fatal to it.

I am going to teach men their life's significance : which is beyond-man, the lightning from the dark cloud of man.

But still I am remote from them, my sense speaketh not to their sense. For men I am still a cross between a fool and a corpse.

Dark is the night, dark are Zarathustra's ways. Come on, thou cold and stiff companion ! I carry thee to the place where I shall bury thee with my hands."

8

Having said thus unto his heart Zarathustra took the corpse on his back and started on his way. When he had not yet gone a hundred steps, somebody steal- ing close to him whispered into his ear and lo ! the speaker was the buffoon from the tower. " Depart from this town, O Zarathustra," he said; "too many hate thee here. There hate thee the good and just ones, and they call thee their enemy and despiser; there hate thee the faithful of the right belief, and they call thee a danger for the many. It was thy good fortune to be laughed at : and, verily, thou spakest like a buffoon. It was thy good fortune to associ- ate with the dead dog; by thus humiliating thyself thou hast saved thyself to-day. But depart from this

�� �