“Thou art angry, fire-dog: so I am in the right about thee!
And that I may also maintain the right, hear the story of another fire-dog; he speaketh actually out of the heart of the earth.
Gold doth his breath exhale, and golden rain: so doth his heart desire. What are ashes and smoke and hot dregs to him!
Laughter flitteth from him like a variegated cloud; adverse is he to thy gargling and spewing and grips in the bowels!
The gold, however, and the laughter—these doth he take out of the heart of the earth: for, that thou mayst know it,—THE HEART OF THE EARTH IS OF GOLD.”
When the fire-dog heard this, he could no longer endure to listen to me. Abashed did he draw in his tail, said “bow-wow!” in a cowed voice, and crept down into his cave.—
Thus told Zarathustra. His disciples, however, hardly listened to him: so great was their eagerness to tell him about the sailors, the rabbits, and the flying man.
“What am I to think of it!” said Zarathustra. “Am I indeed a ghost?
But it may have been my shadow. Ye have surely heard something of the Wanderer and his Shadow?
One thing, however, is certain: I must keep a tighter hold of it; otherwise it will spoil my reputation.”