VI. THE PALE CRIMINAL.
Zarathustra’s eye had perceived that a certain youth avoided him. And as he walked alone one evening over the hills surrounding the town called “The Pied Cow,” behold, there found he the youth sitting leaning against a tree, and gazing with wearied look into the valley.
“If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be able to do so.
But the wind, which we see not, troubleth and bendeth it as it listeth.
Thereupon the youth arose disconcerted, and said: “I hear Zarathustra, and just now was I thinking of him!” Zarathustra answered:
“Why art thou frightened on that account?—But it is the same with man as with the tree.
The more he seeketh to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark and deep—into the evil.” Let your sorrow be love to the Superman: thus will ye justify your own survival!
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth. “How is it possible that thou hast discovered my soul?”
Zarathustra smiled, and said: “Many a soul one will never discover, unless one first invent it.”
“Yea, into the evil!” cried the youth once more. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them.
“Thou saidst the truth, Zarathustra. I trust myself no longer since I sought to rise into the height, and nobody trusteth me any longer; how doth that happen?
I change too quickly: my to-day refuteth my yesterday. I often overleap the steps when I clamber; for so doing, none of the steps pardons me.
When aloft, I find myself always alone. No one speaketh unto me; the frost of solitude maketh me tremble.
My contempt and my longing increase together; the higher I clamber, the more do I despise him who clambereth. What doth he seek on the height? Ah! ye have not gone deep enough into this soul!
How ashamed I am of my clambering and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting!
Here the youth was silent. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood, and spake thus:
“This tree standeth lonely here on the hills; it hath grown up high above man and beast. He did not mean to be ashamed of his madness.
And if it wanted to speak, it would have none who could understand it: so high hath it grown.
Now it waiteth and waiteth,—for what doth it wait?
When Zarathustra had said this, the youth called out with violent gestures: “Yea, Zarathustra, thou speakest the truth. My destruction I longed for, when I desired to be on the height, and thou art the lightning for which I waited!
And when they had walked a while together, Zarathustra began to speak thus: A coil of wild serpents that are seldom at peace among themselves—so they go forth apart and seek prey in the world.
It rendeth my heart. Better than thy words express it, thine eyes tell me all thy danger.
As yet thou art not free; thou still SEEKEST freedom. Too unslept hath thy seeking made thee, and too wakeful.
On the open height wouldst thou be; for the stars thirsteth thy soul. But thy bad impulses also thirst for freedom.
Thy wild dogs want liberty; they bark for joy in their cellar when thy spirit endeavoureth to open all prison doors. But what doth it matter to me about your good people!
Still art thou a prisoner—it seemeth to me—who deviseth liberty for himself: ah! sharp becometh the soul of such prisoners, but also deceitful and wicked. I would that they had a madness by which they succumbed, like this pale criminal!
To purify himself, is still necessary for the freedman of the spirit.
Yea, I know thy danger. But by my love and hope I conjure thee: cast not thy love and hope away!
Thus spake Zarathustra.
