198 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, II
a man, but a great man, a genius. But I never be- lieved the folk when they spake of great men and kept my belief that he was a reversed cripple who had too little of all things, and too much of one thing."
Having thus spoken unto the hunchback and unto those whose mouthpiece and advocate that man was, Zarathustra turned unto his disciples in deep distress and said :
"Verily, my friends, I walk among men as among the fragments and limbs of men !
This is the dreadful thing for mine eye, that I find man broken into pieces and scattered as over a battle- field and a butcher's shambles.
And when mine eye fleeth from to-day into the past it findeth always the same : fragments and limbs and dismal accidents, but no men !
The present and the past on earth alas ! my friends, these are what / find most intolerable. And I should not know how to live, if I were not a prophet of what must come.
A prophet, a willing one, a creator, a veritable future, and a bridge unto the future and alas! be- sides, as it were, a cripple at that bridge. All these things is Zarathustra.
And ye also asked yourselves : ' Who is Zarathustra for us ? How is he to be called by us ? ' And as I do, ye gave yourselves questions for answer.
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