The Pitying and the Priests

In a dream, a child holds a mirror up to Zarathustra, and the face in it is not his own: it is what became of his teaching while he was away, hardened into doctrine, recited instead of thought. So Book Two begins, and Clancy Martin comes down the mountain with him, tracing the opening speech from a stomach-sick thought Sartre would later borrow to the Buddhist teacher who officiated Martin's own wedding, warning included. Then the harder claim: pity adds insult to injury, and a real friend offers something with no softness in it. The priests arrive last, the strangest case: Zarathustra's sworn enemies and, he admits, his blood kin.