ABSTRACT
Situated only a few paces above 'the artist of decadence', Zarathustra can squint his eyes and make believe that he 'beholds the entire fact of man at a tremendous distance – below'. At the same level of decadence, however, he cannot fail to see – short of closing his eyes – the full extent of his own cultural contamination. Running to the spot where 'the Cagliostro of modernity' lay, Zarathustra finds 'a trembling old man with staring eyes', and a reader would be forgiven for (mis)taking this pathetic old man for Zarathustra the convalescent who not long before had also lain 'pale and trembling' like a fading romantic artist. Lacking the courage for his 'most abysmal thought' and so failing in his endeavour to purge himself of the "morality" of ressentiment, Zarathustra falls victim to the extreme 'contrast between his desires and his capacity to fulfil them'.
