did it happen
yester-night at the garden-wall.

To me, however, did the heart writhe with laughter, and was like to
break; it knew not where to go, and sunk into the midriff.

Verily, it will be my death yet--to choke with laughter when I see asses
drunken, and hear night-watchmen thus doubt about God.

Hath the time not LONG since passed for all such doubts? Who may
nowadays awaken such old slumbering, light-shunning things!

With the old Deities hath it long since come to an end:--and verily, a
good joyful Deity-end had they!

They did not "begloom" themselves to death--that do people fabricate! On
the contrary, they--LAUGHED themselves to death once on a time!

That took place when the unGodliest utterance came from a God
himself--the utterance: "There is but one God! Thou shalt have no other
Gods before me!"--

--An old grim-beard of a God, a jealous one, forgot himself in such
wise:--

And all the Gods then laughed, and shook upon their thrones, and
exclaimed: "Is it not just divinity that there are Gods, but no God?"

He that hath an ear let him hear.--

Thus talked Zarathustra in the city he loved, which is surnamed "The
Pied Cow." For from here he had but two days to travel to reach once
more his cave and his animals; his soul, however, rejoiced unceasingly
on account of the nighness of his return home.

LIII. THE RETURN HOME.

O lonesomeness! My HOME, lonesomeness! Too long have I lived wildly in
wild remoteness, to return to thee without tears!

Now threaten me with the finger as mothers threaten; now smile upon me
as mothers smile; now say just: "Who was it that like a whirlwind once
rushed away from me?--

--Who when departing called out: 'Too long have I sat with lonesomeness;
there have I unlearned silence!' THAT hast thou learned now--surely?

O Zarathustra, everything do I know; and that thou wert MORE FORSAKEN
amongst the many, thou unique one, than thou ever wert with me!

One thing is forsakenness, another matter is lonesomeness: THAT hast
thou now learned! And that amongst men thou wilt ever be wild and
strange:

--Wild and strange even when they love thee: for above all they want to
be TREATED INDULGENTLY!

Here, however, art thou at home and house with thyself; here canst thou
utter everything, and unbosom all motives; nothing is here ashamed of
concealed, congealed feelings.

Here do all things come caressingly to thy talk and flatter thee: for
they want to ride upo