CHAPTER TWO

THOUGH he made good friends with all, Goldmund could not at once find a true friend. There was none among his companions to whom he felt closely akin, though they themselves were all amazed to discover a very peaceful companion in this bold fighter, who had struck out right and left.

But now this Goldmund seemed to strive to become the best scholar in the school. There were two in the cloister to whom he was drawn to love, who pleased him and filled his thoughts, for whom he felt deep admiration and reverence: Abbot Daniel and the teaching-novice Narziss. The Abbot he felt to be holy; his good and simple ways, his humble rule, commanding as though in offered service, his still gentleness and peace – all these drew Goldmund powerfully to him. He would have liked best of all to become the body-servant of this saint, would have brought him, as a perpetual offering, the young lad's urge in him to sacrifice, and longed to learn of him how to live a chaste and noble life, a life conformable with sanctity. Such was his will, and such had been his father's wish and command, and so it was as though God had ordained it. Though none in the cloister had marked it, there seemed to be a burden laid on the shoulders of this pleasant and radiant lad, some secret inclination to atonement. Even the abbot did not see it, although Goldmund's father had hinted that it was so, telling him plainly his wish that his son should remain forever in the cloister. A hidden stain on Goldmund's birth appeared to require its expiation. But the knight had not pleased the abbot, who answered with the smoothest courtesy his cold, somewhat arrogant words, not heeding his suggestions overmuch.

That other who had aroused Goldmund's love saw sharper, and could perceive more of all this. But Narziss held back. He had felt well enough how clear a golden bird had flown to him. He, all alone in his fine being, had known himself akin to Goldmund, though in every outer thing the lad was his opposite. Narziss was dark and thin of face, and Goldmund open and radiant as a flower. Narziss was a thinker and anatomiser, Goldmund a dreamer and a child. Yet things common to both could bridge these differences. Both were knightly and delicate; both set apart by visible signs from their fellows, since both had received the particular admonishment of fate.

Narziss took an ardent share in the young soul whose ways and predestination were as well known to him; and Goldmund glowed with pleasure at the sight of his beauteous, meditative teacher. But Goldmund was timid, and could think of no other way of pleasing Narziss than to wear himself out with industry as a skilful and patient scholar. More than his shyness held him back: his love of Narziss was checked by a feeling that this master was a danger to him. How could he take the good and saintly abbot for his ideal and at the same time love this subtle scholar, the learned, the penetrating Narziss?

Yet with all the strength of his youth he pursued these two incompatibles. Together they caused him great suffering, and often, in the first months of his schooldays, Goldmund felt such confusion in his heart, and his mind so torn this way and that, as to come into some temptation to break from the cloister; or else, by fighting with his mates, still his inner need and quench his anger. For some small plaguing or saucy word this good, easy comrade would flame up, wild for no reason, so wrath that only with many struggles could he manage to rein in his ire, while, pale as death and with closed eyes, he turned from his tormentors in silence. Then he would run off to the mangers, seek out his pony Bless, lean up his cheek against his forehead, kiss him, and sob out his heart. This pain laid hold of him by inches, and at last was visible to all. His cheeks thinned, his eyes were often chill, the laugh in which all rejoiced grew ever rarer.

He could not himself have said what he lacked. His deepest wish seemed this: that he should grow into a good, trusty scholar, soon to be received in the novitiate, and so live on to the end, as a quiet, devout brother of the cloister. He believed that his whole faculties and strength were centred in these simple, peaceful aims, and had no thought nor knowledge of other strivings. How strange and hard it seemed to him, therefore, that even this, his fair and quiet purpose, should be so difficult of achievement. From time to time he would lose heart, as he found himself guilty of sinful longings, idleness at study, daydreams, lazy fancies, or drowsiness as he sat in school; rebellious impatience with his Latin master and groundless quarrelling with his fellows. But what caused most turmoil in his soul was his knowledge that his love of Abbot Daniel could never sort with his other longing for Narziss, though he was sure all the while that Narziss loved him, could feel with his pain, and would succour it. Far more even than Goldmund dreamed were Narziss' thoughts engaged about him. He wished this fresh and lovely boy, his friend, could sense in him his opposite and completion, longed to see into his soul, lead him, and enlighten his mind, cherish him and bring him to blossom. Yet many reasons held him back, and of these almost all were known to him. Most was he impeded by his scorn of those many monks and scholars in the cloisters who made favourites of their pupils and novices. He, often enough, had felt with repulsion the longing eyes of elder men upon him, had encountered often enough with dumb rejections their proffered friendship and caresses. Now he could understand them better. He, too, could feel in him the urge to cherish and instruct the pretty Goldmund, evoking his clear, bright laughter, brushing his pale gold hair with tender fingers. But he would never do it. As a teaching-novice, invested with the dignity of a master, yet without a master's office and authority, he was schooled to especial prudence and self-vigilance. He had kept such distance between himself and scholars only a few years younger than he, as he might had he been twenty years their senior: always he had checked most sternly any particular liking for a pupil, while with those who were naturally repugnant to him he had forced himself to particular care and justice. His was a service of the intellect, to which his rigid life was wholly dedicated, and only in his secret mind, at moments when his thoughts were the least guarded, had he given himself up to the vice of pride, of delight in his own knowledge and keen wits. No – no matter how much any friendship with Goldmund might seem to offer him, such a bond could only be perilous: he must never let it touch the core of his life, fashioned to serve the spirit through the word; the life of a quiet and meditative guide, leading on his scholars, and not them only, to higher reaches of perception, oblivious of his own pleasure or pain.

Goldmund had been a year or more at school. He had played many games with his fellows beneath the limes of the outer court and under the lovely chestnut by the gate; games of ball and games of robbers, and snowball fights. Now it was spring, yet Goldmund was dispirited and weary: his head often ached, and in school he found it very hard not to drowse, but to mark his lesson well.

Then one evening Adolf came up to him, that scholar with whom his first encounter had been a fight, and who, in the course of this winter, had begun to study Euclid at his side. It was in the hour after supper, a play-hour, when scholars played in their dormitories, gossiped together in the schoolrooms and, if they chose, might walk in the outer courtyard.

'Goldmund,' said Adolf, taking his arm and leading him down the cloister staircase. 'I have something to tell you, something to make you laugh. You are a pattern scholar and must certainly want to be a bishop, so promise me truly before I tell it you that you'll be a good companion and not breathe a word of it to the teachers.'

This Goldmund promised him at once. In Mariabronn there was honour among the scholars and honour between the monks that taught them, and at times these two came into conflict. But here, as in every other place, the unwritten law prevailed over the written, and never, since he became a scholar, had he broken the law and honour of his kind.

Whispering, Adolf drew him on; out through the gate and under the lime trees. Out here, he said, was a band of good, resolute companions, of whom he, Adolf, was the leader. They had taken from earlier generations the habit of remembering, little by little, that they themselves would never be monks, and so, for a night, would break their enclosure, going in secret into the village. This was a pleasure and adventure which no good scholar should deny himself, and, in the thick of night, they would all creep back again.

'But then the gates will be locked,' said Goldmund.

Of course the gates would be locked, but that was what gave salt to the escapade: there were secret ways by which the adventurers could return; it would not be the first time they had done it.

Goldmund remembered a scholars' saying: 'To go out to the village' – a word he had often heard them use. But this was meant the escape by nights of schoolboys to every sort of joy and adventure, and such transgression meant a sound whipping from the fathers. But he knew well enough that among these resolutes of Mariabronn it was a point of honour to dare such consequence, and considered as a mark of high esteem to be asked to share in such transgression.

He would have answered 'no', run back through the gates and to bed, he felt so sick and heavy at heart. That whole long day his head had ached. Yet now he felt abashed before Adolf. And who could tell? Perhaps out there there would be adventures, some new and beautiful thing to rouse him out of his dullness, the pain in his head and all his heaviness and sorrow. This was an escape into the world, furtive and forbidden, a little dishonest, and yet perhaps a release, a way to happiness. He stood there listening to Adolf, then suddenly laughed and answered 'Yes.'

Unmarked, he and Adolf crept out of sight, into the shadow of the limes on the wide courtyard, already dim, its outer gates already fastened. His comrade led him into the cloister mill, where, through the dusk, and muffled by the clamour of the wheel, it was easy enough to escape unheard, unseen. They clambered in through its windows onto a damp and slippery heap of planks, one of which they would have to draw out, and lay it across the stream to make them a bridge. Then they were outside the enclosure, standing together on a high road, that stretched off pale towards the twilight, into dark woods. All this was full of secrecy and excitement, and pleased Goldmund very much.

A companion awaited them at the wood's edge – Conrad: after long waiting another came hurrying to join them; the big Eberhard. The four trooped on through the woods, above them the cries of nightbirds; two stars glittering far off, wet and clear, between still clouds. Conrad gossiped and laughed, and at times the others laughed with him, yet nonetheless felt solemn and scared of the nigh, and their hearts thumped and thumped within them.

On the far side of the wood, within a short hour, they reached a village. There all seemed to be asleep; the low white gables shimmered through the darkness, cross-hatched with dark ribs of timber. No lights anywhere. Adolf led them on past the silent houses; they climbed a wattle-fence and stood in a garden, their feet in the soft mould of beds, lurching down steps, and halting by the wall of a house. Adolf tapped at the shutter, waited and then tapped again: within somebody stirred, and soon a beam of light shot through the chinks: the shutter opened and one by one they clambered through the window, into a kitchen, with sooty chimney and earthen floor. On the hob was a little oil lamp; up its thin wick climbed a weak flame. There stood a girl, a scraggy peasant, who held out her hand to the newcomers, while behind, out of the darkness, crept another, a young maid, with long, dark plaits. Adolf had brought them gifts; half a loaf of white, cloister bread, and something wrapped in parchment, a handful of stolen incense, Goldmund thought, or wax from the altar tapers, or whatnot. The maid with the plaits stole back into the shadow, and went off, feeling her way, unlighted, to the door; was a long while gone, but returned with a grey stone pitcher, painted with blue flowers, which she gave to Conrad. He drank, and passed it to the others: all drank; it was a strong brew of cider.

They sat together in the flicker of the tiny flame; the two maids on stiff little stools, and around them, on the earthen floor, the scholars, whispering and drinking cider, Adolf and Conrad leading their talk. From time to time one would rise and stroke the scraggy peasant's neck and hair, whispering secrets in her ears, though the maid with the plaits they never touched. Perhaps, Goldmund thought, the elder was the servant of the house, and the little, pretty one the daughter. But that was all one to him, since he never meant to come back here again. Their secret creeping out of the mill, and stealing on through the dark wood, had been rare and fine, although not perilous. True it was all forbidden, and yet he could feel no remorse at breaking a rule. But this, he felt, this visiting maids by night, was sinful. Though it might mean nothing to the rest, to him, who would be a monk and live chaste, all commerce with maids was very evil. No, he would never come back here again! Yet his heart beat faster and faster in the flickering light of the poor kitchen.

His comrades bragged to the two maids, striving to overawe them with Latin tags, with which they adorned their speech. All three seemed in favour with the girls, to whom they crept closer and closer, with little sly love-words and fondlings, though the most they ever dared was a fearful kiss. They seemed to know to a hair what was permitted them; and, since their talk was all in whispers, the scene had in it something foolish, though Goldmund did not feel it to be so. He crouched very still on the floor, staring at the little flickering light, without a word for any of them. At times, with a kind of longing, he would peep round the corner of his eyes at the timid fondlings of the others. Then he would look out stiffly in front of his nose. But at heart he would fain have seen none of them, save only the little dark maid, though her especially he denied himself. Yet again and again his will forsook him as, when his eyes strayed back to the quiet sweetness of her face, he found hers fixed on him immovably. She sat and gazed, as if enchanted.

Almost an hour slipped by – never had Goldmund known so long an hour – the scholars were at the end of their jokes and Latin; it grew quiet, and they sat a little uneasily. Eberhard yawned. The scraggy maid warned them it was time to go. All rose to their feet, all gave this serving-wench their hands, Goldmund the last. They reached out their hands to the little one, and again Goldmund was the last. Conrad led the way through the window, with Eberhard and Adolf after him: but when Goldmund made as if to follow he felt a hand on his shoulder draw him back. Yet he could not stay. Only when he found himself in the garden did he linger, and not avert his eyes. Out through the window the maid with the dark plaits bent down to him.

'Goldmund,' she whispered, and he stopped.

'Will you come back?' she asked him. Her shy voice scarcely needed a breath. Goldmund shook his head. She stretched forth her arms and took it between her hands, and he felt her little palms warm on his temples. She bent far down, till her dark eyes were close to his. 'Come back,' she whispered, and her mouth touched his in a child's kiss.

He darted off through the little garden to the others, stumbling over the beds, pricking his hand on a rose bush, clambered the wattle paling, ran through the village after his fellows. 'Never again,' his will commanded him: 'Tomorrow! Tomorrow,' sighed his heart.

No-one surprised these nightbirds; darkness sheltered their return. They reached their cloister-wall, bridged the stream, and climbed into the mill, swung down under the lime trees into the courtyard, and so, by silent ways, over penthouse roofs, through double-columned windows, to their dormitory.

Next morning the tall Eberhard slept so heavily that his room-mates had to rouse him with pillows. They were all in time for early mass, their morning broth, and so their schoolroom. But in school Goldmund was so pale that Father Martin asked if he were sick. Adolf warned him with a look, and he answered that he felt no pain.

Towards noon, in the Greek school, the eyes of Narziss never left him. This master, too, could see that Goldmund was sick, but asked nothing, and only watched him very closely. When the lesson was done he called to him, and, to escape the eyes of other scholars, sent him with a message into the library. Thither he followed him.

'Goldmund,' he said, 'can I serve you? I see you are in some sort of need. You are sick perhaps. If so we will put you to bed, and order you sick man's broth, and a cup of wine. You had no head for Greek today.'

He waited long for his answer. The pale boy looked up with puzzled eyes at him, hung his head, then raised it again, and strove with twitching lips to form a word. Strive as he might he could not answer. Suddenly, sideways, he sank down, leaning his forehead against a lectern, between two oaken faces of little angels, and broke into such a storm of weeping that Narziss, bewildered and ashamed, had for a while to turn away his face. Then he embraced the sobbing lad, and raised, him.

'Now! Now!' he said, in a kinder voice than Goldmund till then had ever heard from him, 'amice, weep as long as you will, and soon you will have wept out all your tears. So now – sit: you need not speak. I see you have had enough. Perhaps you have been striving all the morning to stand straight and let nobody mark you. Weep – it is the best you can do. Already dry, and able to stand up again? Come with me, then, to the sick-ward, and stretch yourself out, and tomorrow you will wake and be well again. Come, boy.'

He led him gently to the sick-ward, avoiding the rooms of the scholars, placed him in a quiet cell, in one of the two empty beds, and when, in obedience, Goldmund was beginning to strip his clothes off, went out to call the brother physician, and tell him that the boy was sick. As he had promised he went to the refectory, where he ordered him a broth and a cordial; these two beneficia of the cloister were considered a great boon by those scholars whose sickness was not a very grave one.

Goldmund lay in bed and strove to recover his wits. An hour ago he might have told himself clearly what it was that had tired him so that day, what fearful struggle in his heart had made his eyes so hot, and his head so empty. It was his mortal effort, again and again, with each new minute, to forget the night he had passed outside the cloister; or rather not the night itself, with its slippery climb across the millstream, its wild and glorious roamings in dark woods, its running here and there over hedges and ditches, through windows, down passages – but one instant of it: that instant only in the night when he had stood in the dark, at the kitchen window, feeling the maid's breath and hearing her words, touching her hand, and knowing her kiss on his lips.

And now, to all this, was added another terror, with new knowledge. Narziss felt for him in his heart. Narziss loved him, and had him in his thoughts; he, the delicate and wise, the teacher with the fine, mocking lips. Bur Goldmund had been foolish and wept before him, shamed, and unable to say a word; he had stood and sobbed before his eyes. Instead of doing as he had hoped, and subduing this learned man with the noblest weapons, with philosophy, Greek, feats of the spirit, and worthy stoicism, he had trembled and whimpered like a child. Never would he forgive himself that! Never again without shame could he look Narziss in the eyes. Yet, with his tears had gone the worst of his grief. This solitude, and the good bed, healed him; more than half the sting was drawn from his despair. Within the hour there came a lay brother with his broth, a piece of white bread, and a little cup of wine to go with it, such wine as scholars drank on feast-days. Goldmund ate and drank, and soon he had half-emptied his bowl, although, before it was done, he pushed it aside, and strove to think again. But he could not, so seized his bowl of broth, and ate it all up to the end. Later, when the door softly opened, and Narziss stole in to visit the sick scholar, Goldmund lay there asleep, and his cheeks were red again. Narziss stood with curious eyes, staring quietly down, in a kind of envy. He saw: Goldmund was not sick; no need to send him wine next morning. Now the ban was lifted, and they could be friends. Today it was the boy who needed him, and so he had been able to do him service. Next time he perhaps would be the weak one, needing love, comfort, and help, and then from this scholar he would take them, if ever it should come to such a pass.