l68 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II
ye present ones, than your own face is ! Who could recognise you !
Written all over with the signs of the past, and these signs painted over with new signs thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all soothsayers !
And even if one could look through your intestines who will believe that ye have intestines ? Ye seem to have been baked out of colours and glued papers !
All times and all peoples, many-coloured, gaze out of your veils ; all customs and beliefs, many-coloured, speak out of your gestures.
He who would take away from you veils and garments and colours and gestures he would just keep sufficient to scare the birds.
Verily, I myself am the scared bird, who for once saw you naked and colourless ; and I flew away when the 'skeleton made me signs of love.
Rather I would be a day-labourer in the lower regions and among the shadows of the past ! For fatter and fuller than ye are the inhabitants of the lower regions !
This, yea, this is bitterness in my bowels, that I can endure you neither naked nor dressed, ye present ones !
All that is dismal in the future, all that hath scared the strayed birds, is indeed more home-like and more familiar than your ' reality.'
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