Page:Thus Spake Zarathustra - Alexander Tille - 1896.djvu/298

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RETURN HOMEWARD

"Oh, loneliness! Thou my home, loneliness! Too long have I lived wild in wild places afar off, to be able to return home unto thee without tears!

Now threaten me with the finger, as mothers do; now smile at me, as mothers do, now speak: 'And who was it that once upon a time like a stormwind rushed away from me?

Who, taking leave, called: "Too long I sat with loneliness; there I unlearned silence!" Peradventure thou hast now learnt that?

O Zarathustra! I know all and that thou wert more sorely forsaken among the many, thou one, than thou ever wert with me!

Forsakenness is one thing, loneliness is another that thou hast now learnt! And that, among men, thou wilt always be wild and strange—

Wild and strange even when they love thee; for above all they wish to be spared!

But here thou art in thine own home and house; here thou canst speak out everything and pour out all reasons. Nothing here is ashamed of hidden, obdurate feelings.

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