226 THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, III
ever further and ever more remote : believest thou, dwarf, that these roads contradict each other eter- nally ? '
' All that is straight, lieth,' murmured the dwarf with contempt. ' All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.'
' Thou spirit of gravity ! ' said I angrily, ' do not make things too easy for thyself! Otherwise I let thee squat where thou squattest, lame leg, and I have carried thee high' up !
Behold,' I continued, ' this moment ! From this gateway called moment a long, eternal lane runneth backward: behind us lieth an eternity.
Must not all that can run of things have run al- ready through this lane ? Must not what can happen of things have happened, have been done and have run past here ?
And if all things have happened already : what dost thou dwarf think of this moment ? Must not this gate- way have existed previously also ?
And are not thus all things knotted fast together that this moment draweth behind it all future things ? Consequently draweth itself, as well ?
For what can run of things in that long lane out there, it must run once more !
And this slow spider creeping in the moonshine, and this moonshine itself, and I and thou in the gate- way whispering together, whispering of eternal things, must not we all have existed once in the past ?
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