OFF DUTY 377
not endure that his love unto man should become his hell and at last his death ? "
But the old pope answered not, but gazed aside shyly and with sullen cheer.
"Let him go," said Zarathustra after long medita- tion, still gazing straight into the old man's eye.
"Let him go, he is gone. And although it doth honour unto thee that thou speakest well of this dead one, thou knowest, as I do, who he was, and that he went strange ways."
- " Spoken under three eyes," said the old pope cheer-
fully (for he was blind of an eye) ; " in matters of God I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself, and may well be so.
My love served him long years ; my will followed all his will. And a good servant knoweth everything and even many things which his master hideth from himself.
He was a hidden God, full of secrecy. Verily, even his son he begat not otherwise than by a secret way. At the door of belief in him standeth adultery.
Whoever praiseth him as a God of love, thinketh not highly enough of love itself. Did that God not also wish to be a judge ? But the loving one loveth beyond reward and retaliation.
When he was young, that God from the East, he was hard and revengeful, and built up his hell for the delight of those he loved best.
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