RETIRED FROM SERVICE

RETIRED FROM SERVICE

BUT NOT LONG AFTER Zarathustra had freed himself from the magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale face: this man grieved him exceedingly. “Ah,” he said to his heart, “there sits disguised misery, that looks to me like the priestly sort: what does it want in my domain?

“What! Hardly have I escaped from that magician: must another necromancer cross my path,—

“—Some wizard with the laying-on of hands, some somber wonder worker by the grace of God, some anointed world-slanderer: may the devil take him!

“But the devil is never in his proper place: he always comes too late, that damned dwarf and clubfoot!”—

Thus cursed Zarathustra impatiently in his heart, and he considered how he might slip past the black man with his face turned: but behold, it came about otherwise. For at the same moment the sitting one had already seen him; and not unlike one whom an unexpected happiness overtakes, he sprang to his feet and went straight towards Zarathustra.

“Whoever you are, you traveler,” he said, “help a strayed one, a seeker, an old man, who may easily come to grief here!

“The world here is strange to me and remote, I heard wild beasts howling, too; and he who could have given me protection, he is no more.

“I was seeking the last pious man, a saint and a hermit, who, alone in his forest, had not yet heard of what all the world knows today.”

“What does all the world know today?” asked Zarathustra. “Perhaps this, that the old God, in whom all the world once believed, no longer lives?”

“You say it,” answered the old man sorrowfully. “And I served that old God until his last hour.

“But now I am retired from service, without master, and yet not free; likewise I am no longer merry even for an hour, except in recollections.

“Therefore I climbed into these mountains, that I might finally have a festival for myself once more, as becomes an old pope and church-father: for I am the last pope!-a festival of pious recollections and divine services.

“But now he himself is dead, the most pious of men, the saint in the forest, who praised his God constantly with singing and mumbling.

“I no longer found him when I discovered his hut—but I found two wolves inside it, which howled on account of his death,—for all animals loved him. Then I hurried away.

“Did I thus come in vain into these forests and mountains? Then my heart determined that I should seek another, the most pious of all those who do not believe in God—, my heart determined that I should seek Zarathustra!”

Thus spoke the old man and gazed with keen eyes at him who stood before him. But Zarathustra seized the hand of the old pope and regarded it a long while with admiration.

“Behold, you venerable one,” he said then, “what a fine and long hand! That is the hand of one who has always dispensed blessings. But now it holds fast him whom you seek, me, Zarathustra.

“It is I, Zarathustra the godless, who says: ‘Who is ungodlier than I, that I may delight in his instruction?’ ”—

Thus spoke Zarathustra, and penetrated with his glances the thoughts and afterthoughts of the old pope. At last the latter began:

“He who most loved and possessed him has now also lost him most—:

“—Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could rejoice at that!”—

—“You served him to the last?” asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after a deep silence, “You know how he died? Is it true what they say, that pity choked him,

“—that he saw how man hung on the cross, and could not endure it;—that his love for man became his hell, and at last his death?”—

But the old pope did not answer, but looked aside timidly, with a painful and dark expression.

“Let him go,” said Zarathustra, after prolonged meditation, still looking the old man straight in the eye.

“Let him go, he is gone. And though it honors you that you speak only in praise of this dead one, yet you know as well as I who he was, and that he went curious ways.”

“To speak before three eyes,” said the old pope cheerfully (he was blind in one eye), “I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself in divine matters-and appropriately so.

“My love served him for long years, my will followed all his will. A good servant, however, knows everything, and many a thing which a master hides even from himself.

“He was a hidden god, full of secrecy. Truly, he did not come by his son otherwise than by secret ways. At the door of his faith stands adultery.

“Whoever extols him as a God of love, does not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loves irrespective of reward and punishment.

“When he was young, that God out of the orient, then he was harsh and vengeful, and built a hell for the delight of his favorites.

“But at last he became old and soft and mellow and pitiful, more like a grandfather than a father, but most like a tottering old grandmother.

“There he sat shriveled in his chimney-corner, fretting on account of his weak legs, world-weary, will-weary, and one day he suffocated of his all-too-great pity.”—

“You old pope,” said Zarathustra interposing, “have you seen that with your eyes? It could well have happened in that way: in that way, and also otherwise. When gods die they always die many kinds of death.

“Well! At all events, one way or other—he is gone! He offended the taste of my ears and eyes; worse than that I should not like to say against him.

“I love everything that looks bright and speaks honestly. But he—you know it, indeed, you old priest, there was something of your type in him, the priest-type—he was equivocal.

“He was also vague. How he raged at us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood him badly! But why did he not speak more clearly?

“And if the fault lay in our ears, why did he give us ears that heard him badly? If there was dirt in our ears, well! who put it in them?

“Too much miscarried with him, this potter who had not learned thoroughly! That he took revenge on his pots and creations, however, because they turned out badly—that was a sin against good taste.

“In piety there is also good taste: this said at last: Away with such a god! Better to have no god, better to set up destiny on one’s own account, better to be a fool, better to be god oneself!’ ”

—“What do I hear!” the old pope said then, listening intently; “O Zarathustra, you are more pious than you believe, with such unbelief! Some god in you has converted you to your ungodliness.

“Is it not your piety itself which no longer lets you believe in a God? And your over-great honesty will yet lead you even beyond good and evil!

“Behold, what has been reserved for you? You have eyes and hands and mouth, which have been predestined for blessing from eternity. One does not bless with the hand alone.

“Near to you, though you profess to be the ungodliest one, I scent a stealthy odor of holiness and well-being that comes from long benedictions: I feel glad and grieved through it.

“Let me be your guest, O Zarathustra, for a single night! Nowhere on earth shall I now feel better than with you!”—

“Amen! So shall it be!” said Zarathustra, with great astonishment; “up there leads the way, there lies the cave of Zarathustra.

“Gladly, indeed, would I conduct you there myself, you venerable one, for I love all pious men. But now a cry of distress calls me hastily away from you.

“In my domain no one shall come to grief; my cave is a good haven. And best of all I would like to put every sorrowful one again on firm land and firm legs.

“Who, however, could take your melancholy off your shoulders? For that I am too weak. Truly, we should have to wait long until some one reawakened your god for you.

For that old god lives no more: he is quite dead.”—

Thus spoke Zarathustra.