The Leech
And Zarathustra went on, thoughtful, farther and deeper, through forests and past marshy hollows; but as happens to anyone who thinks about heavy things, he stepped unawares on a human being. And behold, all at once a cry of woe and two curses and twenty foul words of abuse sprayed into his face: so that in his fright he raised his stick and struck the one he had stepped on as well. But right afterward he came to his senses; and his heart laughed at the folly he had just committed.
“Forgive me,” he said to the one he had stepped on, who had grimly raised himself and sat up, “forgive me, and before anything else hear a parable.
“As a wanderer dreaming of distant things bumps unawares on a lonely road into a sleeping dog, a dog lying in the sun:
“—as both of them start up and fly at each other like mortal enemies, these two frightened to death: so it went with us.
“And yet! And yet—how little was lacking for them to caress each other, this dog and this solitary one! For they are both—solitary ones!”
—“Whoever you may be,” said the one who had been stepped on, still grim, “you tread too close to me with your parable as well, and not only with your foot!
“Look, am I a dog, then?”—and with that the sitting man rose and pulled his naked arm out of the swamp. For at first he had been lying stretched out on the ground, hidden and unrecognizable, like those who lie in wait for swamp game.
“But what are you doing!” cried Zarathustra in alarm, for he saw that a great deal of blood was flowing down the naked arm,—what has happened to you? Did an evil beast bite you, you unfortunate one?
The bleeding man laughed, still angry. “What is it to you!” he said, and was about to walk on. “Here I am at home and in my domain. Let whoever wants to ask me: but I will hardly answer a clod.”
“You are mistaken,” said Zarathustra with pity, and held him fast, “you are mistaken: here you are not at home but in my kingdom, and in it no one shall come to harm.
“But call me what you like, by all means,—I am who I must be. I myself call myself Zarathustra.
“Well then! Up there is the path to Zarathustra’s cave: it is not far,—will you not tend your wounds with me?
“Things have gone badly for you, you unfortunate one, in this life: first the beast bit you, and then—the human being stepped on you!”—
But when the one who had been stepped on heard Zarathustra’s name, he was transformed. “What is happening to me!” he exclaimed. “Who still concerns me in this life but this one human being, namely Zarathustra, and that one animal that lives on blood, the leech?
“For the leech’s sake I lay here by this swamp like a fisherman, and my dangling arm had already been bitten ten times, when an even finer hedgehog bites at my blood, Zarathustra himself!
“O happiness! O miracle! Praised be this day that lured me into this swamp! Praised be the best, most living cupping glass alive today, praised be the great leech of conscience, Zarathustra!”—
Thus spoke the one who had been stepped on; and Zarathustra was glad at his words and their fine, reverent manner. “Who are you?” he asked, and offered him his hand. “Between us much remains to be cleared up and cheered up: but already, it seems to me, it is becoming pure, bright day.”
“I am the conscientious one of the spirit,” answered the one he had asked, “and in matters of the spirit hardly anyone takes it more strictly, more narrowly, and more harshly than I, except the one from whom I learned it, Zarathustra himself.
“Better to know nothing than to know much by halves! Better to be a fool on one’s own account than a sage by the lights of others! I—go to the ground of things:
“—what does it matter whether it is great or small? Whether it is called swamp or sky? A hand’s breadth of ground is enough for me: if only it is really ground and solid soil!
“—a hand’s breadth of ground: on that one can stand. In the right science of conscience there is nothing great and nothing small.”
“Then perhaps you are the knower of the leech?” asked Zarathustra. “And you pursue the leech down to its ultimate grounds, you conscientious one?”
“O Zarathustra,” answered the one who had been stepped on, “that would be something monstrous; how could I presume to do that!
“But what I am master and knower of is the leech’s brain:—that is my world!
“And it is a world too! But forgive me that my pride speaks up here, for here I have no equal. That is why I said ‘here I am at home.’
“How long have I been pursuing this one thing, the brain of the leech, so that slippery truth should no longer slip away from me here! Here is my kingdom!
“—for its sake I threw away everything else, for its sake everything else became indifferent to me; and right beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.
“My conscience of the spirit wants it so of me, that I know one thing and know nothing else at all: I am disgusted by all the halfway ones of the spirit, all the hazy, the hovering, the gushing.
“Where my integrity ends, I am blind and want to be blind too. But where I want to know, I also want to be honest, that is, hard, strict, narrow, cruel, inexorable.
“That you once said, O Zarathustra: ‘Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life’: that led and seduced me to your teaching. And, truly, with my own blood I increased my own knowledge!”
—“As the evidence of one’s eyes teaches,” Zarathustra broke in; for the blood was still flowing down the naked arm of the conscientious one. For ten leeches had bitten into it.
“O you strange fellow, how much this evidence teaches me, namely you yourself! And perhaps I should not pour everything into your strict ears!
“Well then! So we part here! But I would like to find you again. Up there leads the path to my cave: tonight you shall be my dear guest there!
“I would also like to make amends to your body for Zarathustra’s having trampled you underfoot: I am thinking it over. But now a cry of distress calls me away from you in haste.”
Thus spoke Zarathustra.