The Portable Nietzsche (34 page)

When Zarathustra was on land again he did not proceed straight to his mountain and his cave, but he undertook many ways and questions and found out this and that; so that he said of himself, joking: “Behold a river that flows, winding and twisting, back to its source!” For he wanted to determine what had happened to man meanwhile: whether he had become greater or smaller. And once he saw a row of new houses; then he was amazed and said:

“What do these houses mean? Verily, no great soul put them up as its likeness. Might an idiotic child have taken them out of his toy box? Would that another child might put them back into his box! And these rooms and chambers—can
men
go in and out of them? They look to me as if made for silken dolls, or for stealthy nibblers who probably also let themselves be nibbled stealthily.”

And Zarathustra stood still and reflected. At last he said sadly: “Everything has become smaller! Everywhere I see lower gates: those who are of my kind probably still go through, but they must stoop. Oh, when shall I get back to my homeland, where I need no longer stoop—no longer stoop before
those who are small?”
And Zarathustra sighed and looked into the distance. On that same day, however, he made his speech on virtue that makes small.

I walk among this people and I keep my eyes open: they do not forgive me that I do not envy their virtues. They bite at me because I say to them: small people need small virtues—and because I find it hard to accept that small people are needed.

I am still like the rooster in a strange yard, where the hens also bite at him; but I am not angry with the hens on that account. I am polite to them as to all small annoyances; to be prickly to what is small strikes me as wisdom for hedgehogs.

They all speak of me when they sit around the fire in the evening; they speak of me, but no one thinks of me. This is the new stillness I have learned: their noise concerning me spreads a cloak over my thoughts.

They noise among themselves: “What would this gloomy cloud bring us? Let us see to it that it does not bring us a plague.” And recently a woman tore back her child when it wanted to come to me. “Take the children awayl” she cried; “such eyes scorch children's souls.” They cough when I speak: they think that a cough is an argument against strong winds; they guess nothing of the roaring of my happiness. “We have no time yet for Zarathustra,” they argue; but what matters a time that “has no time” for Zarathustra?

And when they praise me, how could I go to sleep on
their
praise? Their praise is a belt of thorns to me: it scratches me even as I shake it off. And this too I have learned among them: he who gives praise poses as if he were giving back; in truth, however, he wants more gifts.

Ask my foot whether it likes their way of lauding and luring! Verily, after such a beat and ticktock it has no wish either to dance or to stand still. They would laud and lure me into a small virtue; they would persuade my foot to the ticktock of a small happiness.

I walk among this people and I keep my eyes open: they have become smaller, and they are becoming smaller and smaller;
but this is due to their doctrine of happiness and virtue.
For they are modest in virtue, too—because they want contentment. But only a modest virtue gets along with contentment.

To be sure, even they learn in their way to stride and to stride forward: I call it their hobbling. Thus they become a stumbling block for everyone who is in a hurry. And many among them walk forward while looking backward with their necks stiff: I like running into them. Foot and eye should not lie nor give the lie to each other. But there is much lying among the small people. Some of them will, but most of them are only willed. Some of them are genuine, but most of them are bad actors. There are unconscious actors among them and involuntary actors; the genuine are always rare, especially genuine actors.

There is little of man here; therefore their women strive to be mannish. For only he who is man enough will release the woman in woman.

And this hypocrisy I found to be the worst among them, that even those who command, hypocritically feign the virtues of those who serve. “I serve, you serve, we serve”—thus prays even the hypocrisy of the rulers; and woe, if the first lord is
merely
the first servant!

Alas, into their hypocrisies too the curiosity of my eyes flew astray; and well I guessed their fly-happiness and their humming around sunny windowpanes. So much kindness, so much weakness do I see; so much justice and pity, so much weakness.

Round, righteous, and kind they are to each other, round like grains of sand, righteous and kind with grains of sand. Modestly to embrace a small happiness—that they call “resignation”—and modestly they squint the while for another small happiness. At bottom, these simpletons want a single thing most of all: that nobody should hurt them. Thus they try to please and gratify everybody. This, however, is cowardice, even if it be called virtue.

And if they once speak roughly, these small people, I hear only their hoarseness, for every draft makes them hoarse. They are clever, their virtues have clever fingers. But they lack fists, their fingers do not know how to hide behind fists. Virtue to them is that which makes modest and tame: with that they have turned the wolf into a dog and man himself into man's best domestic animal.

“We have placed our chair in the middle,” your smirking says to me; “and exactly as far from dying fighters as from amused sows.” That, however, is mediocrity, though it be called moderation.

I walk among this people and I let many a word drop; but they know neither how to accept nor how to retain.

They are amazed that I did not come to revile venery and vice; and verily, I did not come to warn against pickpockets either.

They are amazed that I am not prepared to teach wit to their cleverness and to whet it—as if they did not have enough clever boys, whose voices screech like slate pencils!

And when I shout, “Curse all cowardly devils in you who like to whine and fold their hands and pray,” they shout, “Zarathustra is godless.” And their teachers of resignation shout it especially; but it is precisely into their ears that I like to shout, “Yes, I
am
Zarathustra the godless!” These teachers of resignation! Whatever is small and sick and scabby, they crawl to like lice; and only my nausea prevents me from squashing them.

Well then, this is my preaching for
their
ears: I am Zarathustra the godless, who speaks: “Who is more godless than I, that I may delight in his instruction?”

I am Zarathustra the godless: where shall I find my equal? And all those are my equals who give themselves their own will and reject all resignation.

I am Zarathustra the godless: I still cook every chance in my pot. And only when it has been cooked through there do I welcome it as my food. And verily, many a chance came to me domineeringly; but my will spoke to it still more domineeringly—and immediately it lay imploringly on its knees, imploring that it might find a hearth and heart in me, and urging with flattery, “Look, Zarathustra, how only a friend comes to his friend!”

But why do I speak where nobody has
my
ears? And so let me shout it into all the winds: You are becoming smaller and smaller, you small people! You are crumbling, you comfortable ones. You will yet perish of your many small virtues, of your many small abstentions, of your many small resignations. Too considerate, too yielding is your soil. But that a tree may become
great,
it must strike hard roots around hard rocks.

What you abstain from too weaves at the web of all human future; your nothing too is a spider web and a spider, which lives on the blood of the future. And when you receive it is like stealing, you small men of virtue; but even among rogues,
honor
says, “One should steal only where one cannot rob.”

“It will give eventually”—that is another teaching of resignation. But I tell you who are comfortable: it
will take
and will take more and more from you! Oh, that you would reject all
halfhearted
willing and would become resolute in sloth and deed!

Alas, that you would understand my word: “Do whatever you will, but first be such as are
able to will.

“Do love your neighbor as yourself, but first be such as
love
themselves
—loving with a great love, loving with a great contempt.” Thus speaks Zarathustra the godless.

But why do I speak where nobody has my ears? It is still an hour too early for me here. I am my own precursor among this people, my own cock's crow through dark lanes. But
their
hour will come! And mine will come tool Hourly, they are becoming smaller, poorer, more sterile—poor herbs! poor soil! and
soon
they shall stand there like dry grass and prairie—and verily, weary of themselves and languishing even more than for water—for
fire
.

O blessed hour of lightning! O secret before noon! I yet hope to turn them into galloping fires and heralds with fiery tongues—they shall yet proclaim with fiery tongues: It is coming, it is near—
the
great
noon!

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Winter, a wicked guest, is sitting at home with me; my hands are blue from the handshake of his friendship. I honor this wicked guest, but I like to let him sit alone. I like to run away from him; and if one runs well, one escapes him. With warm feet and warm thoughts I run where the wind stands still, to the sunny nook of my mount of olives. There I laugh at my severe guest and am still well disposed toward him for catching the flies at home and for silencing much small noise. For he does not suffer it when a mosquito would sing, or even two; he even makes the lane lonely till the moonlight in it is afraid at night.

He is a hard guest, but I honor him, and I do not pray, like the pampered, to the potbellied fire idol. Even a little chattering of the teeth rather than adoring idols —thus my nature dictates. And I have a special grudge against all fire idols that are in heat, steaming and musty.

Whomever I love, I love better in winter than in summer; I mock my enemies better and more heartily since winter dwells in my home. Heartily, in truth, even when I crawl into bed; even then my hidden happiness still laughs and is full of pranks; even the dream that lies to me still laughs. I—a crawler? Never in my life have I crawled before the mighty; and if ever I lied, I lied out of love. Therefore I am glad in the wintry bed too. A simple bed warms me more than a rich one, for I am jealous of my poverty, and in winter it is most faithful to me.

I begin every day with a bit of malice: I mock the winter with a cold bath; that makes my severe house guest grumble. Besides, I like to tickle him with a little wax candle to make him let the sky come out of the ashen gray twilight at last. For I am especially malicious in the morning, in that early hour when the pail rattles at the well and the horses whinny warmly through gray lanes. Then I wait impatiently for the bright sky to rise before me at last, the snow-bearded winter sky, the old man with his white hair—the winter sky, so taciturn that it often tacitly hides even its sun.

Was it from him that I learned the long bright silence? Or did he learn it from me? Or did each of us invent it independently? The origin of all good things is thousandfold; all good prankish things leap into existence from sheer joy: how could one expect them to do that only once? Long silence too is a good prankish thing—and to look out of a bright round-eyed face, like the winter sky, and tacitly to hide one's sun and one's indomitable solar will: verily, this art and this winter prank I have learned well.

It is my favorite malice and art that my silence has learned not to betray itself through silence. Rattling with discourse and dice, I outwit those who wait solemnly: my will and purpose shall elude all these severe inspectors. That no one may discern my ground and ultimate will, for that I have invented my long bright silence. Many I found who were clever: they veiled their faces and muddied their waters that nobody might see through them, deep down. But precisely to them came the cleverer mistrusters and nutcrackers: precisely their most hidden fish were fished out. It is the bright, the bold, the transparent who are cleverest among those who are silent: their ground is down so deep that even the brightest water does not betray it.

You snow-bearded silent winter sky, you round-eyed white-head above me! O you heavenly parable of my soul and its pranks!

And
must
I not conceal myself like one who has swallowed gold, lest they slit open my soul?
Must
I not walk on stilts that they overlook my long legs—all these grudge-joys and drudge-boys who surround me? These smoky, room-temperature, used-up, wilted, fretful souls —how
could
their grudge endure my happiness? Hence I show them only the ice and the winter of my peaks—and not that my mountain still winds all the belts of the sun round itself. They hear only my winter winds whistling—and not that I also cross warm seas, like longing, heavy, hot south winds. They still have pity on my accidents; but
my
word says, “Let accidents come to me, they are innocent as little children.”

How could they endure my happiness if I did not wrap my happiness in accidents and winter distress and polar-bear caps and covers of snowy heavens—if I myself did not have mercy on their
pity,
which is the pity of grudge-joys and drudge-boys, if I myself did not sigh before them and chatter with cold and patiently
suffer
them to wrap me in their pity. This is the wise frolicsomeness and friendliness of my soul, that it does not conceal its winter and its icy winds; nor does it conceal its chilblains.