Upwards:—in spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy.
Upwards:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralysed, paralysing; dripping lead in mine ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.
“O Zarathustra,” it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, “thou stone of wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown stone must—fall!
O Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom, thou sling-stone, thou star-destroyer! Thyself threwest thou so high,—but every thrown stone—must fall!
Condemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed threwest thou thy stone—but upon THYSELF will it recoil!”
Then was the dwarf silent; and it lasted long. The silence, however, oppressed me; and to be thus in pairs, one is verily lonesomer than when alone!
I ascended, I ascended, I dreamt, I thought,—but everything oppressed me. A sick one did I resemble, whom bad torture wearieth, and a worse dream reawakeneth out of his first sleep.—
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that the spirit of gravity, the dwarf Zarathustra carries and defies, stands for the sense of guilt and sin that Christian and Judaic values have bred into men's instincts, and that Nietzsche can affirm the recurrence of life only once he has cast this dwarf off, announcing the doctrine in defiance of him.