Thus spake Zarathustra and was about to go; but the nondescript grasped at a corner of his garment and began anew to gurgle and seek for words. “Stay,” said he at last—
—“Stay! Do not pass by! I have divined what axe it was that struck thee to the ground: hail to thee, O Zarathustra, that thou art again upon thy feet!
Thou hast divined, I know it well, how the man feeleth who killed him,—the murderer of God. Stay! Sit down here beside me; it is not to no purpose.
To whom would I go but unto thee? Stay, sit down! Do not however look at me! Honour thus—mine ugliness!
They persecute me: now art THOU my last refuge. NOT with their hatred, NOT with their bailiffs;—Oh, such persecution would I mock at, and be proud and cheerful!
Hath not all success hitherto been with the well-persecuted ones? And he who persecuteth well learneth readily to be OBSEQUENT—when once he is—put behind! But it is their PITY—
—Their pity is it from which I flee away and flee to thee. O Zarathustra, protect me, thou, my last refuge, thou sole one who divinedst me:
—Thou hast divined how the man feeleth who killed HIM. Stay! And if thou wilt go, thou impatient one, go not the way that I came. THAT way is bad.
Art thou angry with me because I have already racked language too long? Because I have already counselled thee? But know that it is I, the ugliest man,
—Who have also the largest, heaviest feet. Where _I_ have gone, the way is bad. I tread all paths to death and destruction.
But that thou passedst me by in silence, that thou blushedst—I saw it well: thereby did I know thee as Zarathustra.
Every one else would have thrown to me his alms, his pity, in look and speech. But for that—I am not beggar enough: that didst thou divine.
For that I am too RICH, rich in what is great, frightful, ugliest, most unutterable! Thy shame, O Zarathustra, HONOURED me!
With difficulty did I get out of the crowd of the pitiful,—that I might find the only one who at present teacheth that ‘pity is obtrusive’— thyself, O Zarathustra!
—Whether it be the pity of a God, or whether it be human pity, it is offensive to modesty. And unwillingness to help may be nobler than the virtue that rusheth to do so.
THAT however—namely, pity—is called virtue itself at present by all petty people:—they have no reverence for great misfortune, great ugliness, great failure.
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that in meeting the ugliest man Zarathustra shows the only right response to great misery, shame and reverence, against obtrusive pity, which is self-glorification; Nietzsche blushes for his race and wills a world where one need not blush for one's fellows.