Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/361

 attitude were they all three silent together, and sniffed and sipped the good air with one another. For the air here outside was better than with the higher men.

2.
Hardly, however, had Zarathustra left the cave when the old magician got up, looked cunningly about him, and said: "He is gone!

And already, you higher men- let me tickle you with this complimentary and flattering name, as he himself does- already does my evil spirit of deceit and magic attack me, my melancholy devil,

-Which is an adversary to this Zarathustra from the very heart: forgive it for this! Now does it wish to beseech before you, it has just its hour; in vain do I struggle with this evil spirit.

To all of you, whatever honors you like to assume in your names, whether you call yourselves 'the free spirits' or 'the conscientious,' or 'the penitents of the spirit,' or 'the unfettered,' or 'the great longers,'-

-To all of you, who like me suffer from the great loathing, to whom the old God has died, and as yet no new God lies in cradles and swaddling clothes- to all of you is my evil spirit and magic-devil favorable.

I know you, you higher men, I know him,- I know also this fiend whom I love in spite of me, this Zarathustra: he himself often seems to me like the beautiful mask of a saint,

-Like a new strange mummery in which my evil spirit, the melancholy devil, delights:- I love Zarathustra, so does it often seem to me, for the sake of my evil spirit.-