“I taught him all that he taught the world. Whenever he drove a woman’s face from his heart, I scored a point and he thought himself nearer Beyond Man. Whenever he swelled with pride and superiority, I scored a point and he felt himself nearer Beyond Man. Whenever he read the Gospels and sneered to himself at the humility of the so-called Son of Man, I scored two points--one against him and one against your Christ.” “Thank you,” I said, “for enrolling me with the followers of the Crucified One. I am such a follower.” He ignored my last remark, and proceeded: “I encouraged his wish to produce a new ideal of a leader, a new Christ, an Antichrist, a hard-faced German Christ, who should not win men by love and compassion, but by cruelty and hardening. Oh, I have done that work well! Many a German has exalted my ideal to the place of the Son of Mary. Many a German has put me in place of the Sun-God, and hailed me as Beyond Man, though he was too cowardly to hail me frankly _as_ Antichrist. Instead, he added my attributes to Christ and called us by one name, and by that name he sought to destroy all pity and compassion, both in himself and in others, sought to destroy all love that stood in the way of his becoming like me. It was I who taught him to exalt the cross as a symbol of cruelty, of sacrifice _to_ himself, and not _of_ himself for the love of man.” He paused, and gazed out toward the stars that shone serenely above us. “You seem to me,” I said, “to be yourself conscious of the superiority of Christ to Antichrist.” Again he ignored my remark, and continued the line of his own thought. “What intellectual pleasure it has given me, this transforming of a Christian nation into monsters of egotism and cruelty to all things _not their own_! The foreigner was to be hated, despised, used, ridiculed, and whenever possible insulted. I taught them that such were the ways of Beyond Man, that so was man surpassed.” “But why do you tell all this to me?” I asked. “Why do you thus lay your cards upon the table, when you know that I hold a better hand?” The eyes he turned to me were smouldering lakes of flame. “Because I envy you,” he said. “Is that some new and more subtle attack upon me and the principles I stand for?” The dark one laughed again, his sharp and mirthless laughter. “Frankly, no,” he said. “You no longer amuse me as an opponent.” “Which means----” “That I throw up the game in weariness--this is, for the present. Already the souls I deluded are weary of me and my teaching. They have seen a new light--some of them.” “Perhaps,” I said, “they have seen the light of the Christ, the true Beyond Man.” “Perhaps,” he repeated. “And have you seen it, too?” “Faugh!” he said. “Are you ambitious to convert the devil?” “Ah, no!” Suddenly he turned to me: “Will you take me for a pupil?” “Again, no,” I answered. “You will make that request of some good woman, with a better chance of deceiving her.” “So you know all the tricks?”