CHAPTER THREE

IT was a strange friendship that grew between Narziss and Goldmund, one which pleased few, and, at times, almost seemed to displease the friends. Narziss the thinker had at first to bear the heavier burden. To him all was thought, even love. In their love he was the guiding spirit, and, for long, only he of the two was conscious of the depths, scope, and meaning of their bond. For long, although he loved, he was alone, knowing that his friend could not in reality be his till he had led him into the knowledge of himself. Goldmund gave himself up to this new love with eager joy, playing unconsciously like a child. Narziss, responsible and conscious, accepted and pondered their high destiny.

To Goldmund, Narziss brought relief and freedom. His first desire had been awakened by the sight and kiss of a pretty maid: all his longings to be cherished had been roused, and yet scared to desperation, and driven back. This had been his deepest fear: that everything he had dreamed till then of life, his hope and belief in his vocation, the future to which he felt predestined, had been imperilled at its root by that kiss given at the window, and the sight of the maid's dark eyes. Destined by his father to be a monk, and accepting the behest with his whole heart, aspiring with all the fire of his young ardour to the pious heroism of chastity, he had known, at this passing touch, this first call of life to his senses, that here was his enemy and demon; that women were his worst and constant temptation.

Yet now fate had seemed to save him; now, at the height of his need, this friendship showed his longing a garden in flower, in which to erect new altars to his reverence. Here he might love without reproach, transmuting all the perilous fires of sense into clear, sacrificial flame.

Yet even in their earliest spring of friendship he encountered strange, unlooked for, impediments, sudden coldness, terrifying demands. It lay so far from his nature to see in his friend a contradiction and opposite. To him it seemed that only love was needed, only sincere and unconstrained devotion, to make one of two, and quench all differences, to build a bridge between all opposites. Yet how dour and certain, clear and inexorable was this Narziss. To him the harmless, natural gifts of love, a pleasant vagrancy together through the lands of friendship and desire, seemed things unknown, or never sought. This joy in paths leading nowhere, in dreamy straying without a purpose, was one he refused, and would not tolerate. True that when Goldmund was sick he had been troubled, that in matters of school and learning he helped and advised him on many points: he would construe difficult passages in books for him, open out new paths in the realms of grammar, logic, and philosophy; but never did he seem truly satisfied, and never at one with his friend. Often indeed he appeared to scorn him, and treat his words as a jest.

And Goldmund felt that this was more than pedantry, more than an elder and wiser, showing his power; that something far deeper lay behind it. Yet what this deep thing was he could never fathom, and so friendship often made him restless and sad. In reality Narziss knew well enough how much there was of worth in Goldmund. Nor was he blind to the fresh delicate loveliness of the boy, his natural power and zest for life, the sap and promise of his youth. He was no pedant, to feed a fresh young soul with Greek, or answer innocent love with logic. Rather he cherished this yellow-haired boy too much, and that to him seemed a danger, since love, for him, was not in the natural order, but a miracle. He must not, he felt, even satisfy his spirit with this freshness, never allow his affection to stray for an instant into any pleasure of the senses. Since, if Goldmund fancied himself predestined to the life of a monk and an ascetic, a life-long striving after sanctity, Narziss was really framed for such a life, and only love at its highest was permitted him. Nor did Narziss believe that Goldmund had any vocation for the cloister. He, more than most, could read men's souls, and here, in the soul of one he loved, he read with redoubled clarity and perception. He had seen into the depths of Goldmund's nature, which he understood completely, despite their difference, as the other, lost, half of his own. And he saw this nature heavily encased; set about with the boy's own false imaginings, faults in his upbringing, things he must have heard his father say, and had long unravelled the whole simple secret of this young mind. His duty therefore was clear: to make known this secret to its bearer; to free his soul from its husk, restore this nature to itself. This would be hard and, worst of all, perhaps, he would have to lose his dearest friend by doing it.

Slowly, with infinite care, he neared his goal. Months slipped away before any serious trial of his friend, any searching test, was essayed between them. So far, in spite of friendship, were they from each other, so taut the bowstring had been drawn. One of them saw, and one was blind, and so they went together, side by side. That the blind knew nothing of his blindness was a comfort only to himself. Narziss tried his first assault by attempting to discover what experience had caused Goldmund's weakness and tears, at the moment which drew them together. It was easier to unearth than he had thought. Goldmund had for long felt the need to confess the happenings of that night, but for this he trusted none save Abbot Daniel, and the abbot was not his confessor. When therefore Narziss, at a moment when it seemed to him good to do so, reminded his friend of the first occasion of their friendship, and gently touched on the causes of that grief, the boy answered without denials.

'I wish you were a consecrated priest, and that so I could make my confession to you. I should be glad to free myself of a sin, and very willing to do my penance for it. Yet I cannot say it to my confessor.'

With caution Narziss inquired more nearly; his path was found.

'You remember,' he began, by way of trial, 'that morning when you seemed to be sick. You cannot have forgotten, since that was the day which made us friends. It has often been in my mind. You perhaps may not have perceived it, but I was very helpless that day.'

'You helpless!' answered Goldmund, incredulous, 'I was the helpless one. It was I that had to stand there sobbing, and striving to bring out a word, until at last I howled like a baby. Oh – I am still ashamed when I think of it! I thought I should never be fit to show myself to you again. To think you ever saw me look so pitiful!;

Narziss pressed him very cautiously.

'I can understand,' he said, 'that you felt ashamed by it. Such a fine brave fellow as you, and to stand there weeping before his friend – more, before his teacher. That was unlike you. But then I supposed you to be sick. When ague shakes him even Aristotle may say strange things. And yet all the time it was not sickness. Not even a fever. So that was why you were so ashamed! Who feels any shame because he is shaken with a fever? You were ashamed because something had conquered you, because some enemy had you down. Had anything unusual happened then?'

Goldmund did not answer him at once. Then he said slowly: 'Yes, it was something out of the common. Let me suppose you my confessor. After all, I shall have to say it one day.'

With eyes cast down he told his friend the story of that night. Narziss answered with a smile:

'Well, it is forbidden “to go to the village”. But many forbidden things may be done by us, and yet we scarcely trouble to even think about them. Or else we confess and are absolved, and so become free of our guilt. Why should not you, like almost every scholar, join in such a small escapade? Is that so bad then?'

Goldmund grew angry, and poured out a torrent of words.

'In truth you talk to me like a pedant. You know quite well what happens “in the village”. Naturally I count it no great sin to break a few set rules of the cloister, and run out with a couple of schoolboys – though even that sorts ill with preparation for life as a monk.'

'Hold,' exclaimed Narziss sharply, 'do you not know, amice, that for many of the greatest saints just such infringements have been necessary? Have you not heard that one of the shortest ways to sanctity may be a life of carnal riot?'

'Oh, enough,' Goldmund defended himself. 'I wanted to say that it was not any small infringement of rule that weighed me down that day, and caused me to weep. It was something else; it was the maid! It was a feeling which I could never make clear to you; a feeling that if I yielded to that temptation, if once I stretched out my hand to touch her, I should not be able to come back here, that hell would suck me in, like a swamp, and never let me go again. And I felt that then there would be the end of all fair dreams, all virtue, all love of God and Hid goodness.'

Narziss nodded very thoughtfully.

'The love of God,' he said, weighing his words, 'is not always one with our love of virtue. Oh, if it were only so easy! We know the good, for it is written. But God is not only in what is written, boy. His commandments are the smallest part of Him. We may keep the commandments to the letter, and yet be very far from God.'

'But don't you see what I mean?' Goldmund complained.

'Certainly I see. You feel that in women, in carnal love, there is contained all that you think of as “sin”, and “the world”. Of all other sins you suppose yourself incapable, or, if you committed them, they would not weigh you down like this. They could all be confessed and atoned, except this one sin.'

'Yes, that is how I feel.'

'Well, you see, I can understand you: nor are you altogether wrong. The story of Eve and her serpent is certainly not an idle tale. And yet, amice, you are wrong. You would be right, perhaps, if you were Abbot Daniel, or a patron saint, like your St Chrysostom; or if you were a bishop or a priest, or even a simple little monk. But you re none of these. You are a young scholar, and even if it be your wish to stay for ever here in the cloister or if your father wished it in your stead, you have taken no vows as yet; you are not consecrated. If today or tomorrow you found yourself seduced by a pretty wench, and so gave way to her temptation, you would have broken no oath, and done no sacrilege.'

'No written oath,' cried Goldmund very hotly, 'but one unwritten, and the holiest. The oath I have taken to myself. Can you not see that what may be valid for many others is yet invalid for me? Are you not you yourself still unconsecrated? You took no oath to live chaste, and yet you would never touch a maid. Or am I deceived in you? Are you not truly what you seem? Are you not what I think you? Have not you too long since made a promise in your heart, although you never swore it openly, before your brothers and superiors? And do you not feel bound by it for ever? Are you not like me then?'

'No, Goldmund, I am not like you; or rather not as you imagine me. It is true that I have taken a silent oath. There you are right. But in no other way am I like you. Today I will say to you a thing which one day I believe you will remember. It is this: our friendship has only one meaning, only one object – that I should show you how much you differ from your friend.'

Goldmund stood perplexed. The look in Narziss' eyes, the tone in his voice, had been such that they could not be withstood. But why did Narziss say such words? Why should Narziss' unspoken oath be more inviolable than his? Did he see in him only a child, to be teased and humoured? All the perplexities and sadness of their strange bond again assailed him.

Narziss no longer doubted the nature of Goldmund's secret. Eve, the eternal mother, lurked behind. But how had it ever come about that so joyous and beautiful a boy, so full of rising sap and nascent desire, should find in himself so bitter a resistance? Some demon must be at work in him, a hidden fiend to whom it was permitted to divide this noble being against itself, in the essence and primal urge by which it lived. Good then – this demon must be named, exorcised, and made visible to all, and, when this was done, he could be conquered.

Meanwhile Goldmund, more and more, was neglected and shunned by his companions: or rather, in a measure, it was they who felt him to be avoiding and shunning them. His friendship with Narziss pleased none of them. The evil-tongued, those who had themselves loved one of the friends, slandered it as a vice against nature. Yet even those who could see plainly that here there was no vice to be reproved still shook their heads. None granted these two friends to one another. By this close friendship, it was said, they had set themselves apart from all the brotherhood: their fellows were not good enough for these noblemen; their spirit was against the community, was against the charity of the cloister, was unchristian.

Rumours of the two, complaints and slanders against them, began to reach the ears of Abbot Daniel. In his forty years and more in the enclosure he had watched many friendships between young men. These had their place in the general life of the monastery, were sometimes a jest and sometimes perilous. He kept apart, watching them carefully, without any direct interference. Such warm exclusive friendship as this was rare, and certainly not without its danger. Yet, since he could not doubt its purity, he put no hindrance in its way. Had Narziss not been as he was, placed midway between the scholars and teaching monks, the abbot never would have hesitated to lay on him commands that should separate them. It was bad for Goldmund that he had ceased to mingle with his fellows, consorting with an elder, and a teacher. But would it be just to prevent Narziss, the learned, the youth set apart and marked by intellect, Narziss acknowledged as his equal, nay superior, by every other teacher, from going the path which he had chosen; impede his mission to instruct? Had Narziss not taught as well as before, had his friendship led him into sloth, the abbot would have parted them at once. But nothing could be brought against him; only rumour, and the jealous mistrust of others. Moreover Daniel was aware of Narziss' unexampled gift; his penetrating, strange, perhaps presumptuous knowledge of men. He did not rate such faculties too high: others would have pleased him better in Narziss. But he never doubted that this teacher had seen some especial virtue in his friend, and knew him better than any other. He himself had perceived in Goldmund nothing unusual, besides his winsomeness and grace, save a certain eager, almost owlish zeal in him, with which this mere young scholar, and guest of the cloister, already seemed to consider it his home, and himself a fully professed monk. Nor did he fear any danger that Narziss would spur on and encourage this touching but somewhat callous zeal. What he dreaded most for Goldmund from his friend was that Narziss might infect the lad's spirit with a certain learned pride and darkness of soul, although, for this particular scholar, the danger did not seem so great that such risk could not be incurred. No, he would not let mistrust infect him, nor show himself unthankful that great souls were sometimes given into his care.

Narziss pondered much on Goldmund. His faculty to perceive and recognize the characters and desires of human beings had long achieved its purpose with the other. Already he had found what he sought. All this glow and fervour of youth spoke clearly to him. Goldmund bore on him every sign of a strong and highly gifted man, rich in his body and his mind; at least of a man with unusual power of love in him whose desire and happiness lay in this: that his flame was easily kindled, that he had in him the gift of self-forgetfulness. But why was this young being, formed for a lover, this youth of the delicate perception, he who could love, and rejoice so well and fully in the scent of a flower or morning sunshine, a horse, a flight of birds, a stave of music – why was he set for firmly in his wish to become a priest and an ascetic?

Narziss pondered the matter long. He knew how Goldmund's father had encouraged this purpose in the boy. But could he have created the wish? What sorcery had he used upon his son to make him believe in such a vocation as his duty? And what kind of a man could this father be? Although purposely he had often turned their talk to him, and Goldmund had spoken of him frequently, Narziss had formed no clear image of this father: he could not see him.

What not that unusual and suspicious? When Goldmund told of the trout he had caught as a child, when he painted a butterfly in words, aped the cry of a bird, spoke of a comrade, told of a dog or a beggar, their images arose, and could be seen. But when he spoke of his father there was nothing. No, if indeed the father had been so strong and powerful, so dominant over Goldmund's early life, his friend would have described him far better, would have brought him to life with far more joy. Narziss did not esteem this father much: the knight displeased him, and at times he would even doubt if this could be Goldmund's father after all. He was an empty idol. Yet whence had he derived such power? How had he filled Goldmund's soul with dreams so foreign to the boy's innermost being?

Goldmund often thought of Narziss. Certain as he was of his friend's deep love there remained the constant, irksome suspicion that this friend was treating him as a child. What did it mean that Narziss should forever be telling him how unlike they were to one another? Meanwhile there was better to do than think, and this scholar had no taste for close thinking. There were many things to fill up the long bright days with. He would often hide with the brother-porter, since with him he felt quite at his ease, and from him would cajole permission to ride again on Bless, his pony. He was much beloved by the two laymen who dwelt in the cloister, the miller, and the miller's boy. With these he chased otters in the mill-stream, or would bake a loaf of fine prelate's bread with them, the scent of which Goldmund could pick out with his eyes shut from every other kind of meal they used. Though still he spent long hours with Narziss there were many when he renewed old joys and habits. High Mass and vespers were a pleasure to him, it pleased him to sing in the scholars' choir, he loved to say his rosary at a side altar, and listen to the solemn church Latin, watch, through an incense-cloud, the gleam of ornaments and chasubles, gaze up at the stiff and reverent images of saints along the arches of the nave: the Evangelists, each with his beast, St James, with his pilgrim's hat and staff.

These images seemed to entice him: he rejoiced to feel, in their stone or wooden shapes, some secret understanding with his mind; to think them, after a fashion, the undying, all-seeing patrons, guides and protectors, of his life. So too he felt a kind of love, a hidden, deep attraction, to the pillars, the scrolls over windows and doorways, and every garnishing of the altars; to the fair and clear-cut garlands, stems, and branches, flowers, and clumps of growing leaves, which burst forth from the stone of every plinth, entwining so persistently and vividly. To him it seemed a deep and previous secret that here, outside Nature, her plants and beasts, there should be this dumb second life, devised by men, and men themselves in stone: men, beasts, and planets in stone and wood. Often he would pass a free hour in taking copies of these devices; beasts, men's faces, clusters of leaves; and at times would strive very hard to draw them again out of his head, or from real horses, flowers, and live men's masks.

He loved their songs in the cloister-church, especially the canticle to Mary: the sure, stern lilt of these chaunts, returning on itself again and again to praises and bursts of supplication. He could either follow their serenest sense with his prayers or, careless of what the words might mean, heed only the stately measure of the music, allowing its virtue to sink into him, its long, deep notes drawn out in plangent, resonant supplication, with pious reassurances of love. In his innermost heart he did not love learning, had no taste in him for grammar and logic, although these also had their beauty: his soul was given to the image and sound-world of the litany.

From time to time he would overcome his estrangement from his companions. It is irksome to live long in the midst of coldness and spite. Again and again he made a sulky neighbour laugh in school, led on a silent room-mate to gossip at night in the dormitory, strove for an hour together to gain love, and so win back a few eyes, faces, and hearts. Twice, much against his will, such proffered friendship was rewarded with the proposal that he should go 'to the village'. Then he took fright, and again shrank back into himself. No, he would go no more 'to the village'. He had managed at last to forget the dark-haired girl; never to think of her – or seldom.