Chapter 44 Visions and Mysteries Part Three

"Stop, dwarf!" I said. "Me! Or you! But I am the stronger of the two: you do not know my deepest thoughts, you cannot harbor them!"— Then, what happened to lighten the burden on me: for the dwarf jumped off my shoulders, the negligent!He sat on a rock in front of me.There was a post just where we stood. "Dwarf! Look at the pillar!" I said again: "It has two faces. Here two roads meet: but who has not yet come to the end of them. The long way back: stretches an eternity.The long way forward— It is also an eternity. These two roads diverge from each other, and are in direct conflict:—and this gate is their meeting point.The name of the pillar gate is engraved on it: 'Instant'.

But if one follows either way,--goes forever: do you believe, dwarf, that the two ways will never conflict? " "Everything straight is a lie," the dwarf whispered contemptuously. "All truth is curved; time itself is a loop." "You, serious spirit!" I said angrily, "don't answer me lightly! Or I'll leave you crippled where you're sitting--don't forget that I'll carry you to a high place! Just look at this moment! I continued. "From this Pillar of Moments, a long and endless road goes backwards: behind us lies an eternity."

Shouldn't the one who can run among all things have already completed that path?Shouldn't those who can reach in all things have already reached and completed and passed away? If everything has already existed: how do you explain this moment, dwarf? ——Shouldn’t this pillar gate already exist? Is not all things so intertwined, so that the moment holds all the future? And does it also determine itself? Therefore, those who can run among all things: they should follow the previous road! —— This spider crawling under the moonlight, this moonlight, under the pillar whispering the eternal I and you of all things,—shouldn’t they all have existed?

—Shouldn’t we come and run the road ahead again,—the long road haunted by ghosts?Shouldn't we come again for eternity? "— I say this in a fading voice: because I am afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts after my thoughts.Suddenly I heard a dog barking next to us. Have I ever heard a dog bark like that?My mind ran backwards.yes!When I was a child, in my farthest childhood: —At that time, I once heard a dog bark like this.And I saw it trembling with its neck erect, in the deadest of midnights, in the midnights where dogs believe in ghosts: —and I felt pity for it.Just then a full moon came out dead and still over the house, and it stood still, the glowing ball—on the flat roof as peacefully as on someone else's property:—

So again this frightened the dog: for it also believed in thieves and ghosts.I heard it bark again, and I felt sorry for it again. Where is the dwarf now?What about the pillars?Where's the spider?And what about the whispers of everything?did i ever dreamDid I wake up?Suddenly I found myself standing alone among wild rocks, in the bleakest moonlight. But lying there alone!look!The shaggy dog ​​jumped and moaned. --it saw me approaching,--it barked again:--did I ever hear a dog bark like this for help? Really, everything I saw then, I never saw.I saw a young shepherd panting, his face convulsed, his body writhing crookedly, a thick black snake hanging out of his mouth.

Have I ever seen such utter loathing and ashen terror in a face?Maybe he was fast asleep?And the snake crawled into his throat—and gnawed. I dragged the snake with my hands, and I dragged:—in vain!My hand cannot drag it out of the shepherd's throat.Then a cry broke out from my mouth: "Bite! Bite! Bite off its head!Bite! ”—thus cries my terror, my hatred, my disgust, and my pity, and all my good and my evil cry out from my mouth with one voice.— O brave seekers and explorers all around me!O you who sail with cunning sails on the dreadful sea!Lovers of mysteries! Solve for me the riddle of what I have seen, explain to me the vision of the lonely man!

For it is a vision, a premonition:—what do I see in this parable?Who is the one who will come sooner or later? Who is the shepherd that the serpent keeps silent?Who is it that endures the darkest and most painful things? —But the shepherd did bite, as my call advised; he bit with all his might!He spat out the snake's head a long way: -- and jumped up himself. —— He was no longer a shepherd, nor a man,—he was transfigured, and had a halo.He is smiling!No one on earth has ever laughed like him! Ah, brothers, I hear an inhuman laugh, -- now a thirst, an insatiable longing, devours me.

My longing for that laughter devours me: ah, how can I bear to live?How can I bear to die now? —— Thus spake Zarathustra.