On this perfect day when everything is ripening and not only the grapes are becoming brown, a ray of sunshine has fallen on my life: I looked behind me, I looked before me, never have I seen so many and such good things together. Not in vain have I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it—the life within it has been saved and is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of all Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, The Twilight of the Idols—my attempt to philosophize with the hammer—all these things are gifts of this year and even of its last quarter! How could I not be grateful to the whole of my life? That is why I am now going to tell myself the story of my life.