The hunchback

When Zarathustra went one day over the great bridge, then did the cripples and beggars surround him, and a hunchback spake thus unto him: “Behold, Zarathustra! Even the people learn from thee, and acquire faith in thy…

On the great bridge a hunchback asks Zarathustra to heal the cripples so that the people will believe him. Zarathustra answers that he sees worse: 'reversed cripples' who are one huge organ, like the ear as big as a man.

—But at this point in his discourse it chanced that Zarathustra suddenly paused, and looked like a person in the greatest alarm. With terror in his eyes did he gaze on his disciples; his glances pierced as with arrows…

Zarathustra breaks off in alarm, then laughs and says silence is hard for a babbler. The hunchback asks why he speaks differently to his disciples, and Zarathustra says one may speak in a hunchbacked way with hunchbacks.