 | Thus Spake Zarathustra |  |
1.
WHEN Zarathustra was again on the continent, he did not go straightway to his mountains and his cave, but made many wanderings and questionings, and ascertained this and that; so that he said of himself jestingly: "Lo, a river that floweth back unto its source in many windings!" For he wanted to learn what had taken place among men during the interval: whether they had become greater or smaller. And once, when he saw a row of new houses, he marvelled, and said:
"What do these houses mean? Verily, no great soul put them up as its simile!
Did perhaps a silly child take them out of its toy-box? Would that another child put them again into the box!
And these rooms and chambers-can men go out and in there? They seem to be made for silk dolls; or for dainty-eaters, who perhaps let others eat with them."
And Zarathustra stood still and meditated. At last he said sorrowfully: "There hath everything become smaller!
Everywhere do I see lower doorways: he who is of my type can still go therethrough, but-he must stoop!
Oh, when shall I arrive again at my home, where I shall no longer have to stoop-shall no longer have to stoop before the small ones!"-And Zarathustra sighed, and gazed into the distance.-
The same day, however, he gave his discourse on the bedwarfing virtue.
| Thus Spake Zarathustra | |