ld knoweth at present."

"WHAT doth all the world know at present?" asked Zarathustra. "Perhaps
that the old God no longer liveth, in whom all the world once believed?"

"Thou sayest it," answered the old man sorrowfully. "And I served that
old God until his last hour.

Now, however, am I out of service, without master, and yet not free;
likewise am I no longer merry even for an hour, except it be in
recollections.

Therefore did I ascend into these mountains, that I might finally have
a festival for myself once more, as becometh an old pope and
church-father: for know it, that I am the last pope!--a festival of
pious recollections and divine services.

Now, however, is he himself dead, the most pious of men, the saint in
the forest, who praised his God constantly with singing and mumbling.

He himself found I no longer when I found his cot--but two wolves found
I therein, which howled on account of his death,--for all animals loved
him. Then did I haste away.

Had I thus come in vain into these forests and mountains? Then did my
heart determine that I should seek another, the most pious of all
those who believe not in God--, my heart determined that I should seek
Zarathustra!"

Thus spake the hoary man, and gazed with keen eyes at him who stood
before him. Zarathustra however seized the hand of the old pope and
regarded it a long while with admiration.

"Lo! thou venerable one," said he then, "what a fine and long hand! That
is the hand of one who hath ever dispensed blessings. Now, however, doth
it hold fast him whom thou seekest, me, Zarathustra.

It is I, the ungodly Zarathustra, who saith: 'Who is ungodlier than I,
that I may enjoy his teaching?'"--

Thus spake Zarathustra, and penetrated with his glances the thoughts and
arrear-thoughts of the old pope. At last the latter began:

"He who most loved and possessed him hath now also lost him most--:

--Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who
could rejoice at that!"--

--"Thou servedst him to the last?" asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after
a deep silence, "thou knowest HOW he died? Is it true what they say,
that sympathy choked him;

--That he saw how MAN hung on the cross, and could not endure it;--that
his love to man became his hell, and at last his death?"--

The old pope however did not answer, but looked aside timidly, with a
painful and gloomy expression.

"Let him go," said Zarathustra, after prolonged meditation