Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Thomas Common - 1917.djvu/381

 Worse verily, do you here than with your bad brown girls, you bad, new believer!"

"It is sad enough," answered the wanderer and shadow, "you are right: but how can I help it! The old God lives again, O Zarathustra, you mayst say what you wilt.

The ugliest man is to blame for it all: he has reawakened him. And if he say that he once killed him, with Gods death is always just a prejudice."

-"And you," said Zarathustra, "you bad old magician, what did you do! Who ought to believe any longer in you in this free age, when you believe in such divine donkeyism?

It was a stupid thing that you didst; how could you, a shrewd man, do such a stupid thing!"

"O Zarathustra," answered the shrewd magician, "you are right, it was a stupid thing,- it was also repugnant to me."

-"And you even," said Zarathustra to the spiritually conscientious one, "consider, and put your finger to your nose! does nothing go against your conscience here? Is your spirit not too cleanly for this praying and the fumes of those devotees?"

"There is something therein," said the spiritually conscientious one, and put his finger to his nose, "there is something in this spectacle which even does good to my conscience.

Perhaps I dare not believe in God: certain it is however, that God seems to me most worthy of belief in this form.

God is said to be eternal, according to the testimony of the most pious: he who has so much time takes his time. As slow and as stupid as possible: thereby can such a one nevertheless go very far.

And he who has too much spirit might well become infatuated with stupidity and folly. Think of yourself, O Zarathustra!

You yourself- verily! even you could well become an ass through superabundance of wisdom.