FOURTH AND LAST PART.
77. LXXVII. THE AWAKENING.
1.
After the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave became all at once full
of noise and laughter: and since the assembled guests all spake
simultaneously, and even the ass, encouraged thereby, no longer remained
silent, a little aversion and scorn for his visitors came over Zarathustra,
although he rejoiced at their gladness. For it seemed to him a sign of
convalescence. So he slipped out into the open air and spake to his
animals.
"Whither hath their distress now gone?" said he, and already did he himself
feel relieved of his petty disgust--"with me, it seemeth that they have
unlearned their cries of distress!
--Though, alas! not yet their crying." And Zarathustra stopped his ears,
for just then did the YE-A of the ass mix strangely with the noisy
jubilation of those higher men.
"They are merry," he began again, "and who knoweth? perhaps at their host's
expense; and if they have learned of me to laugh, still it is not MY
laughter they have learned.
But what matter about that! They are old people: they recover in their
own way, they laugh in their own way; mine ears have already endured worse
and have not become peevish.
This day is a victory: he already yieldeth, he fleeth, THE SPIRIT OF
GRAVITY, mine old arch-enemy! How well this day is about to end, which
began so badly and gloomily!
And it is ABOUT TO end. Already cometh the evening: over the sea rideth
it hither, the good rider! How it bobbeth, the blessed one, the home-returning one, in its purple saddles!
The sky gazeth brightly thereon, the world lieth deep. Oh, all ye strange
ones who have come to me, it is already worth while to have lived with me!"
Thus spake Zarathustra. And again came the cries and laughter of the
higher men out of the cave: then began he anew:
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