"That's abject; and that's where the deception comes in." His eyes flashed. "Life is pain, life is terror, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and terror. Now man loves life, because he loves pain and terror, and so they have done according. Life is given now for pain and terror, and that's the deception. Now man is not yet what he will be. There will be a new man, happy and proud. For whom it will be the same to live or not to live, he will be the new man. He who will conquer pain and terror will himself be a god. And this God will not be." "Then this God does exist according to you?" "He does not exist, but He is. In the stone there is no pain, but in the fear of the stone is the pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. He who will conquer pain and terror will become himself a god. Then there will be a new life, a new man; everything will be new... then they will divide history into two parts: from the gorilla to the annihilation of God, and from the annihilation of God to..." "To the gorilla?" "... To the transformation of the earth, and of man physically. Man will be God, and will be transformed physically, and the world will be transformed and things will be transformed and thoughts and all feelings. What do you think: will man be changed physically then?" "If it will be just the same living or not living, all will kill themselves, and perhaps that's what the change will be?" "That's no matter. They will kill deception. Every one who wants the supreme freedom must dare to kill himself. He who dares to kill himself has found out the secret of the deception. There is no freedom beyond; that is all, and there is nothing beyond. He who dares kill himself is God. Now every one can do so that there shall be no God and shall be nothing. But no one has once done it yet." "There have been millions of suicides." "But always not for that; always with terror and not for that object. Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear will become a god at once." "He won't have time, perhaps," I observed. "That's no matter," he answered softly, with calm pride, almost disdain. "I'm sorry that you seem to be laughing," he added half a minute later. "It seems strange to me that you were so irritable this morning and are now so calm, though you speak with warmth." "This morning? It was funny this morning," he answered with a smile. "I don't like scolding, and I never laugh," he added mournfully. "Yes, you don't spend your nights very cheerfully over your tea." I got up and took my cap. "You think not?" he smiled with some surprise. "Why? No, I... I don't know." He was suddenly confused. "I know not how it is with the others, and I feel that I cannot do as others. Everybody thinks and then at once thinks of something else. I can't think of something else. I think all my life of one thing. God has tormented me all my life," he ended up suddenly with astonishing expansiveness.