Narcissus and Goldmund (36 page)

Authors: Hermann Hesse

His murmuring ended in a smile.

“We'll make you well again, Goldmund, we'll take care of you. If only you had turned right around when you began feeling sick! You really don't have to feel ashamed in front of us. You should have come right back.”

Goldmund laughed.

“Yes, now I remember. I didn't dare come back. It would have been shameful. But now I have come. Now I feel well again.”

“Have you had great pain?”

“Pain? Yes, I have had pains enough. But you see, pains are not so bad; they've brought me to reason. Now I no longer feel ashamed, not even in front of you. The day you came to see me in prison, to save my life, I had to clench my teeth very hard, because I felt ashamed in front of you. But that is completely over now.”

Narcissus put his hand on Goldmund's arm and immediately Goldmund stopped speaking and closed his eyes with a smile. He fell peacefully asleep. Disturbed, the Abbot ran to fetch the house physician, Father Anton, to look after the sick man. When they came back, Goldmund was still sitting fast asleep at his drawing table. They put him to bed and the physician stayed to examine him.

He found him hopelessly ill. He was carried into one of the sick rooms, where Erich kept a constant watch.

The whole story of his last journey was never known. He told a few details; others could be guessed. Often he lay listlessly. Sometimes he had a fever and was delirious; sometimes he was lucid, and then Narcissus was sent for each time. These last conversations with Goldmund became extremely important to him.

Narcissus set down a few fragments of Goldmund's reports and confessions. Others were told by Erich.

“When did the pain start? At the very beginning of my journey. I was riding in the forest and fell with my horse into a brook, where I lay the whole night in cold water. I must have broken several ribs; ever since, I've had pains in my chest. At that time I was not very far from here, but I didn't want to turn back. That was childish, I know, but I thought it would look foolish. So I rode on, and when I could ride no longer, because it hurt too much, I sold the horse, and then I was in a hospital for a long time.

“I'll stay here now, Narcissus. I'll never ride off again. No more wandering. No more dancing, no more women. Oh, otherwise I'd have stayed away much longer, years longer. But when I saw that there was no joy out there for me any more, I thought: before I go under, I want to draw a bit more, and make a few more figures. One does want to have some pleasure after all.”

Narcissus said to him: “I'm very glad you've come back. I missed you very much. I thought of you every day, and I was often afraid that you would never want to come back.”

Goldmund shook his head: “Well, the loss would not have been great.”

Narcissus, his heart burning with grief and love, slowly bent down to him, and now he did what he had never done in the many years of their friendship. He touched Goldmund's hair and forehead with his lips. Astonished at first, and then moved, Goldmund knew what had happened.

“Goldmund,” the Abbot whispered into his ear, “forgive me for not being able to tell you earlier. I should have said it to you the day I came to see you in your prison in the bishop's residence, or when I was shown your first statues, or at so many other times. Let me tell you today how much I love you, how much you have always meant to me, how rich you have made my life. It will not mean very much to you. You are used to love; it is not rare for you; so many women have loved and spoiled you. For me it is different. My life has been poor in love; I have lacked the best of life. Our Abbot Daniel once told me that he thought I was arrogant; he was probably right. I am not unjust toward people. I make efforts to be just and patient with them, but I have never loved them. Of two scholars in the cloister, I prefer the one who is more learned; I've never loved a weak scholar in spite of his weakness. If I know nevertheless what love is, it is because of you. I have been able to love you, you alone among all men. You cannot imagine what that means. It means a well in a desert, a blossoming tree in the wilderness. It is thanks to you alone that my heart has not dried up, that a place within me has remained open to grace.”

Goldmund smiled happily; he was slightly embarrassed. With the soft, calm voice he had during his lucid hours, he said: “When you saved me from the gallows that day and we were riding home, I asked you about my horse Bless and you knew what had happened to him. That day I saw that you, who had never known one horse from another, had taken care of my little Bless. I understood that you had done it because of me, and I was very happy about it. Now I see that it was really so, that you really do love me. But I have always loved you, Narcissus. Half of my life was spent courting you. I knew that you, too, were fond of me, but I never dared hope that you would tell me some day, you're such a proud man. You give me your love in this moment when I have nothing left, when wandering and freedom, world and women have abandoned me. I accept it and I thank you for it.”

The Lydia-madonna stood in the room, watching.

“Do you think constantly of death?” asked Narcissus.

“Yes, I think of it and of what has become of my life. As a young man, when I was still your pupil, I wished to become as spiritual as you were. You showed me that I had no calling for it. Then I threw myself into the other side of life, into the world of the senses, and women made it easy for me to find my joys there, they are so greedy and willing. But I don't wish to speak disdainfully of them, or of the joys of the senses; I have often been extremely happy. And I was also fortunate enough in my experiences to learn that sensuality can be given a soul. Of it art is born. But now both flames have died out in me. I no longer have the animal happiness of ecstasy, and I wouldn't want it now even if women were still running after me. And to create works of art is no longer my wish either. I've made enough statues; the number does not matter. Therefore it is time for me to die. I am ready, and I'm curious about it.”

“Why curious?” asked Narcissus.

“Well, it may be a bit stupid of me. But I'm really curious about it. Not of the beyond, Narcissus. I think about that very little, and if I may say so openly, I no longer believe in it. There is no beyond. The dried-up tree is dead forever; the frozen bird does not come back to life, nor does a man after he has died. One may continue to think of him for a while after he's gone, but that doesn't last long either. No, I'm curious about dying only because it is still my belief or my dream that I am on the road toward my mother. I hope death will be a great happiness, a happiness as great as that of love, fulfilled love. I cannot give up the thought that, instead of death with his scythe, it will be my mother who will come to take me back to her, who will lead me back to nonbeing and innocence.”

During one of his last visits, after Goldmund had not said anything for several days, Narcissus again found him awake and talkative.

“Father Anton thinks you must often be in great pain. How do you bear it so calmly, Goldmund? It seems to me you have found peace now.”

“Do you mean peace with God? No, that peace I have not found. I don't want any peace with Him. He has made the world badly; we don't need to praise it, and He'll care little whether I praise Him or not. He has made the world badly. But I have made peace with the pain in my chest, yes. In former days I was not good at bearing pain, and although I sometimes thought dying would come easily to me, I was wrong. When death was so near me that night in Count Heinrich's prison, I saw that I simply could not face it. I was still much too strong and too wild to die; they would have had to break each one of my bones twice. But now it is different.”

Speaking tired him. His voice grew weaker. Narcissus asked him to spare himself.

“No,” he said, “I want to tell you. Before this I would have been ashamed to tell you. It'll make you laugh. When I mounted my horse that day and rode away, I was not just riding off into the blue. I had heard a rumor that Count Heinrich had returned to this region and that his mistress Agnes was with him. Well, all right, that does not seem important to you, and today it does not seem important to me either. But at that time the news burned itself into me, and I thought of nothing but Agnes. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever known and loved: I wanted to see her again, I wanted to be happy with her again. I rode off, and after a week I found her. And there, during that hour, the change in me took place. As I said, I found her. She had not grown less beautiful. I found her and found as well the opportunity to show myself to her and to speak to her. And just think, Narcissus: she no longer wanted to have anything to do with me. I was too old for her; I was no longer pretty enough, amusing enough; she no longer wanted anything from me. That, actually, was the end of my journey. But I rode on. I didn't want to come back to you so disappointed and ridiculous, and as I rode along, force and youth and intelligence had already completely abandoned me, because I stumbled into a gully with my horse and fell into a stream and broke several ribs and lay there helpless in the water. That's when I first learned about real pain. As I fell I felt something break inside my chest, and the breaking pleased me, I was glad to hear it, I was content with it. I lay there in the water and knew that I was about to die, but everything was completely different from that night in the count's prison. I had nothing against it; dying no longer seemed terrible to me. I felt those violent pains which I've often had since then, and with them I had a dream, or a vision, whatever you want to call it. I lay there and had burning pains in my chest and I was defending myself against them and screaming when I heard a laughing voice, a voice I had not heard since childhood. It was my mother's voice, a deep womanly voice, full of ecstasy and love. And then I saw that it was she, that she was with me, holding me in her lap, and that she had opened my breast and put her fingers between my ribs to pluck out my heart. When I saw and understood that, it no longer hurt. And now, when the pains come back, they are not pains, they are not enemies; they are my mother's fingers taking my heart out. She works hard at it. Sometimes she presses down and moans as though in ecstasy. Sometimes she laughs and hums tender sounds. Sometimes she is not with me, but high above in heaven, and I see her face among the clouds, as large as a cloud. She floats there, smiling sadly, and her sad smile pulls at me and draws my heart out of my chest.”

Again and again he spoke of her, of his mother.

“Do you remember?” he murmured on one of the last days. “I had completely forgotten my mother until you conjured her up again. That day, too, it hurt very much, as though animal jaws were tearing at my intestines. We were still young then, pretty young boys. But even then my mother called me and I had to follow. She is everywhere. She was Lise, the gypsy; she was Master Niklaus's beautiful madonna; she was life, love, ecstasy. She also was fear, hunger, instinct. Now she is death; she has her fingers in my chest.”

“Don't speak so much, my dear friend,” said Narcissus. “Wait until tomorrow.”

With his new smile Goldmund looked into Narcissus's eyes, with the smile that he had brought back from his journey, the smile that looked at times so old and fragile, a little senile perhaps, and then again like pure kindness and wisdom.

“My dear friend,” he whispered, “I cannot wait until tomorrow. I must say farewell to you now, and as we part I must tell you everything. Listen to me another moment. I wanted to tell you about my mother, and how she keeps her fingers clasped around my heart. For many years it has been my most cherished, my secret dream to make a statue of the mother. She was to me the most sacred of all my images; I have carried her always inside me, a figure of love and mystery. Only a short while ago it would have been unbearable to me to think that I might die without having carved her statue; my life would have seemed useless to me. And now see how strangely things have turned out: it is not my hands that shape and form her; it is her hands that shape and form me. She is closing her fingers around my heart, she is loosening it, she is emptying me; she is seducing me into dying and with me dies my dream, the beautiful statue, the image of the great mother-Eve. I can still see it, and if I had force in my hands, I could carve it. But she doesn't want that; she doesn't want me to make her secret visible. She rather wants me to die. I'm glad to die; she is making it easy for me.”

Deeply shaken, Narcissus listened to his words. He had to bend close to his friend's lips to be able to understand what they were saying. Some words he heard only indistinctly; others he heard clearly, but their meaning escaped him.

And now the sick man opened his eyes again and looked for a long while into his friend's face. He said farewell with his eyes. And with a sudden movement, as though he were trying to shake his head, he whispered: “But how will you die when your time comes, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.”

What he murmured after that could not be understood. Those last two days Narcissus sat by his bed day and night, watching his life ebb away. Goldmund's last words burned like fire in his heart.

Books by Hermann Hesse

PETER CAMENZIND

BENEATH THE WHEEL

GERTRUDE

ROSSHALDE

KNULP

DEMIAN

STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR

KLINGSOR'S LAST SUMMER

WANDERING

SIDDHARTHA

STEPPENWOLF