I, Ubermensh

Yes it is me all right. Now dont scratch your head thinking where you heard that name. You must know me by another name which I dont like. A big moustached German fellow predicted me but I dont recall his name. I had read his book, obviously I wouldnt give it great attention, and I can recall him if I try hard, but I wouldnt. You should know that that is inappropriate for me to do; you should know if you are wise that no one deserves my effort. Assuming that a man who holds my book has to be a wise man I wouldnt need to press that point further. And as you hold my book, you must have the manners, too, to remove your shoes as you read me. I think you have done it now. Good. Now dont imagine that I am a huge bodied monster or a big headed intellectual or a magician of some sort. Im as normal as all those worthless people, indifferent in their ignorance, strolling the street outside this window of mine. I am writing with a pen, and Ive to take long intervals between sentences to think. Look, Im humble enough to say that I have to think, Im not a superman! Ach! I hate that word, its misleading. Its too magical. That German used the best word, and Ill keep it. Thats my token to that mans wisdom, thats how I give him alms. What? You didnt like that? You want Nietzsche to be respected? Ach! I recalled the name, I recalled the name! How dreadful! Now I wont scratch it, no I am a man of truth, I am not afraid of it. Anyway, I have no reason to explain to you why I will or wont scratch out the things I write. And your wisdom will make you take that in the right sense. Would it not? Do you have a pencil in your hand? Are you not underlining the words I write, so as to memorise them and keep them in your blood? I have a sensation that you are not (dont be childish to ask me how). I see that I am not being taken seriously; nobody understood that I have come. That I, the most important event in all of history, have after all taken flesh and blood. It is surprising that you are not banging your head on the wall, rubbing your face on the ground and madly revelling, intoxicated in your joy, ready to, without reason lay down your life, on hearing the news of my arrival. If only the German had been alive! Hed have brought me to your notice, hed have revelled and worshipped me. If he can worship worms like that Goethe and that horse riding Napoleon, imagine what he would have done if I stood before him. You found that rude too? Then my fellow, you dont realise what has just happened, you dont realise how infinitely lucky you are that I have condescended to speak to your unworthiness. Youll shut the book now being offended but if you dont and go on reading, then you are a warrior indeed. The German isnt any worthier than you, but was a visionary, he knew me. He knew me then, an infinitesimal part of me. But as I walk on the street along with other men, a thing I mustnt do, no one seems to be surprised. I look them in their eyes, to find nothing more than just human curiosity on seeing me walking with head held high. They look at me for a second and immediately look away, in childish ignorance. Sheep! And I laugh, I laugh all night. Not a mocking laughter but a lordly golden laughter that that German rightly predicted. Every night I laugh like that, I laugh till six in the morning, I dance too as I laugh. The cold of the night brightens my cheer, my joy. I dont pity them for not recognising me. Pity! Ha ha, why should I? Pity and sympathy are businesses of those that die on crosses! And then in their womanish magnanimity they forgive their violators. Why? Because of their drowning in pity. The German has talked enough about Him and its enough already. The subject has become old and stale.

As I was telling, the German should have lived today. Hed have brought all of your dull attentions on me, if hed been alive, O reader, youd have read this book with greater reverence. He first announced me to the world when he talked about me to the townspeople crowding to watch the rope walker. Under the robe of a prophet he stood, and with his searching eyes saw me inside each and every of the rabble. There as he stood majestically, though weak and thin with ailment, I saw him and he saw me, and we looked into each others eyes. In the eyes of the petty man, in his human rags, he saw an infinitesimal part of my eyes and was maddened with joy and jumped off his feet. He was voluptuous and greedy, he wanted to pierced into and see as much of me as he could, and every more atom of me he saw his joy burst in him and he shook the rabble to take off this shabby, worthless human rag and to bring up from within this lustrous one. His greed for me made him announce to them that man was to be overcome, the rag to be removed in order to wear the robes. Only grief awaited him, as no one was wise enough to pay heed. No one had ears to hear profundity of such kind. They wanted the motley coloured ropewalking clown instead and thus they lost their only chance to become me, for another prophet like him would not come and no message of the lustrous heard again. They lost and so have you, O my dear fellow. I was wrong, it was my mistake. I shouldnt have called my prophet an unworthy fellow. No I change my mind after deliberation. He was great indeed. To confess, the joy that came to him, that overpowering joy, so overpowering that it could break ones spine, which came to him by catching a glimpse of me, came to me too on catching a glimpse of him. That grand, brilliant weakling, with a generous, voluntary weakness, that prophet of hardship and individualism: Nietzsche his name. Ill call you prophet from now on, though petty you be too, you were a rabble with eyes. He wrote well, better than I can. But why should I write well? What need have I to fulfil? What victory to gain? I am satisfaction itself am I not? But Ill try to express myself as beautifully as I can. Why? Because I pity you my dear man, I pity you and wish for your benefit, for your nourishment. Not so much pity that Ill go insane at the sight of some horse being whipped, no, not that much pity. But a little pity, so much pity as is allowable,