Narcissus and Goldmund (31 page)

Mounting, Goldmund said: “I have one more request. Let us pass by the fish market; I have an errand there.”

They rode off and Goldmund looked up at every castle window to see if Agnes might perhaps be visible. He did not see her. They rode to the fish market; Marie had worried a great deal about him. He bade farewell to her and to her parents, thanked them a thousand times, promised to come back one day, and rode off. Marie stood in the doorway of her house until the riders were out of sight. Slowly she limped back inside.

They rode four abreast: Narcissus, Goldmund, the young monk, and an armed groom.

“Do you still remember my little horse Bless?” Goldmund asked. “He was in your stable at the cloister.”

“Certainly. But you won't find him there any more, and you probably didn't expect to. It's been at least seven or eight years since we had to do away with him.”

“And you remember that?”

“Oh yes, I remember.”

Goldmund was not sad about Bless's death. He was glad that Narcissus knew so much about Bless, Narcissus who had never cared about animals and probably had never known another cloister horse by name. That made him very glad.

“With all the people in your cloister,” he began again, “you'll laugh at me for asking first about that poor little horse. It wasn't nice of me. Actually I had wanted to ask about something else entirely, about our Abbot Daniel. But I suppose that he is dead since you are his successor. And I didn't intend to speak only of death to begin with. I'm not well inclined toward death at the moment, because of last night, and also because of the plague, of which I saw altogether too much. But now that we're on the subject, and since we'll have to speak about it some time, tell me when and how Abbot Daniel died. I revered him very much. And tell me also if Father Anselm and Father Martin are still alive. I'm prepared for the worst. But I'm glad the plague spared you at least. I never imagined that you might have died; I firmly believed that we would meet again. But belief can deceive, as I was unfortunate enough to learn by experience. I could not imagine that my master Niklaus, the image carver, would be dead either; I counted on seeing him again and working with him again. Nevertheless, he was dead when I got there.”

“All is quickly told,” said Narcissus. “Abbot Daniel died eight years ago, without illness or pain. I am not his successor; I've been Abbot only for a year. Father Martin was his successor, the former head of our school. He died last year; he was almost seventy. And Father Anselm is no longer with us either. He was fond of you, he often spoke of you. During his last years he could no longer walk at all, and lying in bed was a great torture to him; he died of dropsy. Yes, and we too had the plague; many died. Let's not speak of it. Have you any other questions?”

“Certainly, many more. Most of all: how do you happen to be here in the bishop's city at the governor's palace?”

“That is a long story, and you'd be bored with it; it is a matter of politics. The count is a favorite of the Emperor and his executor in many matters, and at this moment there are many things to be set to rights between the Emperor and our religious order. I was one of the delegates sent to treat with the count. Our success was small.”

He fell silent and Goldmund asked nothing more. He had no need to know that last night, when Narcissus had pleaded for Goldmund's life, that life had been paid for with a number of concessions to the ruthless count.

They rode; Goldmund soon felt tired and had difficulty staying in the saddle.

After a long while Narcissus asked: “But is it true that you were arrested for theft? The count said you had sneaked into the inner rooms of the castle, where you were caught stealing.”

Goldmund laughed. “Well, it really looked as though I were a thief. But I had a meeting with the count's mistress; he doubtless knew that, too. I'm surprised that he let me go at all.”

“Well, he wasn't above a little bargaining.”

They could not cover the distance they had set themselves for that day. Goldmund was too exhausted; his hands could no longer hold the reins. They took rooms in a village for the night; he was put to bed running a slight fever, and they kept him in bed the next day, too. But then he was strong enough to ride on. Soon his hands were healed and he began to enjoy riding. How long since he had last ridden! He came to life again, grew young and animated, rode many a race with the groom, and during hours of conversation assaulted his friend Narcissus with hundreds of impatient questions. Calmly, yet joyously, Narcissus responded. Again he was charmed by Goldmund. He loved these vehement, childlike questions, all asked with unlimited confidence in his own ability to answer them.

“One question, Narcissus: did you also burn Jews?”

“Burn Jews? How could we? There are no Jews where we are.”

“All right. But tell me: would you be capable of burning Jews? Can you imagine such a possibility?”

“No, why should I? Do you take me for a fanatic?”

“Understand me, Narcissus. I mean: can you imagine that, in certain circumstances, you might give the order to kill Jews, or consent to their being killed? So many dukes, mayors, bishops, and other authorities did give such orders.”

“I would not give an order of that kind. On the other hand it is conceivable that I might have to witness and tolerate such cruelty.”

“You'd tolerate it then?”

“Certainly, if I had no power to prevent it. You probably saw some Jews being burned, didn't you, Goldmund?”

“I did.”

“Well, and did you prevent it? You didn't. You see.”

Goldmund told the story of Rebekka in great detail; he grew hot and passionate in telling it.

“And so,” he concluded violently, “what is this world in which we are made to live? Is it not hell? Is it not revolting and disgusting?”

“Certainly, that's how the world is.”

“Ah!” Goldmund cried with indignation. “And how often you told me that the world was divine, that it was a great harmony of circles with the Creator enthroned in its midst, that what existed was good, and so forth. You told me Aristotle had said so, or Saint Thomas. I'm eager to hear you explain the contradiction.”

Narcissus laughed.

“Your memory is surprising, and yet it has deceived you slightly. I have always adored our Creator as perfect, but never his creation. I have never denied the evil in the world. No true thinker has ever affirmed that life on earth is harmonious and just, or that man is good, my dear friend. On the contrary. The Holy Bible expressly states that the strivings and doings of man's heart are evil, and every day we see this confirmed anew.”

“Very good. At last I see what you learned men mean. So man is evil, and life on earth is full of ugliness and trickery—you admit it. But somewhere behind all that, in your thoughts and books, justice and perfection exist. They exist, they can be proved, but only if they are never put to use.”

“You have stored up a great deal of anger against us theologians, dear friend! But you have still not become a thinker; you've got it all topsy-turvy. You still have a few things to learn. But why do you say we don't put justice to use? We do that every day, every hour. I, for instance, am an abbot and I govern a cloister. Life in this cloister is just as imperfect and full of sin as it is in the world outside. And yet we constantly set the idea of justice against original sin and try to measure our imperfect lives by it and try to correct evil and put ourselves in everlasting relationship with God.”

“All right, Narcissus. I don't mean you, nor did I mean that you were not a good abbot. But I'm thinking of Rebekka, of the burned Jews, the mass burials, the Great Death, of the alleys and rooms full of stinking corpses, of all the gruesome looting, the haggard, abandoned children, of dogs starved to death on their chains—and when I think of all that and see these images before me, then my heart aches and it seems to me that our mothers have borne us into a hopeless, cruel, devilish world, and that it would be better if they had never conceived, if God had not created this horrible world, if the Saviour had not let himself be nailed to the cross in vain.”

Narcissus gave Goldmund a friendly nod.

“You are quite right,” he said warmly. “Go ahead, say it all, get it all out. But in one thing you are quite wrong: you think that the things you have said are thoughts. But actually they are feelings. They are the feelings of a man preoccupied with the horror of life, and you must not forget that these sad, desperate emotions are balanced by completely different ones! When you feel happy on a horse, riding through a pretty landscape, or when you sneak somewhat recklessly into a castle at night to court a count's mistress, then the world looks altogether different to you, and no plague-stricken house or burned Jew can prevent you from fulfilling your desire. Is that not so?”

“Certainly that is so. Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and to pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell. I find bliss, and for an hour I forget the horror. But that does not mean that it does not exist.”

“You expressed that very well. So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert.”

“Yes, that's true.”

“Most people feel that way, but only a few feel it with such sharpness and violence as you do; few feel the need to become aware of these feelings. But tell me: besides this desperate coming and going between lust and horror, besides this seesaw between lust for life and sadness of death—have you tried no other road?”

“Oh yes, of course I have. I've tried art. I've already told you that, among other things, I also became an artist. One day, when I had roamed the world for three years perhaps, wandering almost all the time, I saw a wooden madonna in a cloister church. It was so beautiful, the sight moved me so deeply, that I asked the name of the sculptor who carved it and searched for him. I found him, he was a famous master; I became his apprentice and worked with him for a few years.”

“You'll tell me more about that later. But what has art meant to you, what has art brought to you?”

“It was the overcoming of the transitory. I saw that something remained of the fools' play, the death dance of human life, something lasting: works of art. They too will probably perish some day; they'll burn or crumble or be destroyed. Still, they outlast many human lives; they form a silent empire of images and relics beyond the fleeting moment. To work at that seems good and comforting to me, because it almost succeeds in making the transitory eternal.”

“I like that very much, Goldmund. I hope you will again make beautiful statues; my confidence in your strength is great. I hope you will be my guest in Mariabronn for a long time and permit me to set up a workshop for you; our cloister has long since been without an artist. But I do not think your definition quite encompassed the miracle of art. I believe that art is more than salvaging something mortal from death and transforming it into stone, wood, and color, so that it lasts a little longer. I have seen many works of art, many a saint and many a madonna, which did not seem to me merely faithful copies of a specific person who once lived and whose shapes or colors the artist has preserved.”

“You are right in that,” Goldmund cried eagerly. “I didn't think you were so well informed about art! The basic image of a good work of art is not a real, living figure, although it may inspire it. The basic image is not flesh and blood; it is mind. It is an image that has its home in the artist's soul. In me, too, Narcissus, such images are alive, which I hope to express one day and show to you.”

“How lovely! And now, my dear Goldmund, you have strayed unknowingly into philosophy and have expressed one of its secrets.”

“You're mocking me.”

“Oh no. You spoke of ‘basic images,' of images that exist nowhere except in the creative mind, but which can be realized and made visible in matter. Long before a figure becomes visible and gains reality, it exists as an image in the artist's soul. This image then, this ‘basic image,' is exactly what the old philosophers call an ‘idea.'”

“Yes, that sounds quite plausible.”

“Well, and now that you have pledged yourself to ideas and to basic images, you are on mind-ground, in the world of philosophers and theologians, and you admit that, at the center of the confused, painful battlefield of life, at the center of the endless and meaningless death dance of fleshly existence, there exists the creative mind. Look, I have always addressed myself to this mind in you, ever since you came to me as a boy. In you, this mind is not that of a thinker but that of an artist. But it is mind, and it is the mind that will show you the way out of the blurred confusion of the world of the senses, out of the eternal seesaw between lust and despair. Ah, my dear friend, I am happy to have heard this confession from you. I have waited for it—since the day you left your teacher Narcissus and found the courage to be yourself. Now we can be friends anew.”

It seemed to Goldmund that his life had been given a meaning. For a moment it was as though he were looking down on it from above, clearly seeing its three big steps: his dependence on Narcissus and his awakening; then the period of freedom and wandering; and now the return, the reflection, the beginning of maturity and harvest.

The vision faded again. But he had found a fitting relationship to Narcissus. It was no longer a relationship of dependence, but one of equality and reciprocity. He could be the guest of this superior mind without humiliation, since the other man had given recognition to the creative power in him. During their journey he looked forward with increasing eagerness to revealing himself to him, to making his inner world visible to him in works of images. But sometimes he also worried.