pon was Zarathustra silent and wondered.--"Dost thou
still hear nothing?" continued the soothsayer: "doth it not rush and
roar out of the depth?"--Zarathustra was silent once more and listened:
then heard he a long, long cry, which the abysses threw to one another
and passed on; for none of them wished to retain it: so evil did it
sound.

"Thou ill announcer," said Zarathustra at last, "that is a cry of
distress, and the cry of a man; it may come perhaps out of a black sea.
But what doth human distress matter to me! My last sin which hath been
reserved for me,--knowest thou what it is called?"

--"PITY!" answered the soothsayer from an overflowing heart, and raised
both his hands aloft--"O Zarathustra, I have come that I may seduce thee
to thy last sin!"--

And hardly had those words been uttered when there sounded the cry
once more, and longer and more alarming than before--also much nearer.
"Hearest thou? Hearest thou, O Zarathustra?" called out the soothsayer,
"the cry concerneth thee, it calleth thee: Come, come, come; it is time,
it is the highest time!"--

Zarathustra was silent thereupon, confused and staggered; at last he
asked, like one who hesitateth in himself: "And who is it that there
calleth me?"

"But thou knowest it, certainly," answered the soothsayer warmly, "why
dost thou conceal thyself? It is THE HIGHER MAN that crieth for thee!"

"The higher man?" cried Zarathustra, horror-stricken: "what wanteth HE?
What wanteth HE? The higher man! What wanteth he here?"--and his skin
covered with perspiration.

The soothsayer, however, did not heed Zarathustra's alarm, but listened
and listened in the downward direction. When, however, it had been still
there for a long while, he looked behind, and saw Zarathustra standing
trembling.

"O Zarathustra," he began, with sorrowful voice, "thou dost not stand
there like one whose happiness maketh him giddy: thou wilt have to dance
lest thou tumble down!

But although thou shouldst dance before me, and leap all thy side-leaps,
no one may say unto me: 'Behold, here danceth the last joyous man!'

In vain would any one come to this height who sought HIM here: caves
would he find, indeed, and back-caves, hiding-places for hidden ones;
but not lucky mines, nor treasure-chambers, nor new gold-veins of
happiness.

Happiness--how indeed could one find happiness among such buried-alive
and solitary ones! Must I yet seek the last happiness on the Happy
Isles, and f