CHAPTER FOUR

FOR long Goldmund's secret remained proof against all the siege that Narziss laid against it. For long, or so it had appeared, Narziss had striven in vain to give this hidden thing its voice and teach his scholar the word by which to vanquish it. Goldmund in their talks gave no clear picture of his home, of the life whence he had come into this cloister. He had told of a shadowy father, deeply respected but ill-defined, with a misty tale of a mother, long dead and vanished, who remained as a pale name and nothing more.

Narziss, the skilled reader of other men, had come by degrees to see in Goldmund one of those who have had to lose a part of their lives; who, forced by some need or sorcery in themselves, cannot think of certain matters in their past. He saw he would gain nothing by teaching or questioning, saw he had trusted too much in the power of reason, and spoken many vain and useless words.

But his love of Goldmund had not been vain, nor their custom of being much together. In spite of the depths that sundered them each had learned much from the other's company. Between them, beside the language of reason, there had slowly come into being another tongue; a speech of signs and of the soul; as, between two dwellings, though there be a high road for waggoners, on which litters pass, and riders may jog from place to place, there are also set around it many lanes, field-tracks running in and out, hidden paths on which children play, walks under trees for lovers, the half-seen trails of cats and dogs. By degrees Goldmund's magic power of speaking his mind in images had found ways into the thoughts of his friend, creeping into all they said together: so that Narziss, without aid of words, learned to feel for himself and to define much of Goldmund's nature and perceptions. Slowly, in the light of these, a bridge of love was built from soul to soul, and words could find a way along it. So that at last, when neither was expecting it, as they sat on a feast-day in the library, there arose a talk which led them on to the very heart and meaning of their friendship, and illumined its whole future course.

They had sat discussing astrology, a forbidden science, and not pursued in the cloister. Narziss had said that it was a striving to order and arrange after their kinds the many diverse sorts of human beings, their predestined character and their fates. Here Goldmund broke into his words.

'You speak of nothing but differences! I have slowly begun to see that they form your own particular whimsy. When you speak of this great difference between us I always feel that it lies in nothing, save in your own strange hankering to find differences.'

Narziss: 'Right. You have hit the nail on the head. That is what I mean – that to your differences mean little, while to me they are the most important things. Mine is the nature of a scholar, and my branch of scholarship is science. And science, to quote your own words, is nothing less than a “strange hankering after differences”. Her essence could not be better defined. For men of science nothing is so important as the clear definition of differences. To find, for instance, on every man, those signs which mark him off from all other men: that is to know him.'

Goldmund: 'But how? One has peasant's shoes and is a peasant; another a crown on his head, and is a king. There are your differences! But these are seen by children, without any science.'

Narziss: 'Yet when peasant and king are clad alike children can no longer distinguish between them.'

Goldmund: 'No more can science.'

Narziss: 'Perhaps it can. I admit that science is not any cleverer than a child: but she is more patient. She works more nearly, and sees more than the coarsest of differences.'

Goldmund: 'And so does every clever child. He could know a king from his look and bearing. But to be plain: you fine scholars are proud, and you always think us duller than yourselves. We can sharpen our wits without science.'

Narziss: 'I am glad to see you have noticed that. Soon you will have noticed, too, that I do not mean skill or cunning when I speak of differences between us. I do not say: “Your wits are sharper, or you are better or worse than I.” I only say: “You are not I”.'

Goldmund: 'That's easily understood. But you do more than speak to me of differences in outward signs; you speak of a difference in fate and predestination. Why, for example, should your destiny be other than mine? You, like me, are a Christian; we are both resolved to live as monks. And you, like me, are the child of our good Father who is in heaven. Our goal is the same – eternal happiness; our resolves the same – to return to God.'

Narziss: 'Very good. It is true that in books of dogma one man is the same as any other. But not in life. I think that the Redeemer's beloved disciple who laid his head upon His breast, and that other disciple who betrayed Him, had not both been framed for the same destiny.'

Goldmund: 'You are a sophist, Narziss. Along such paths we shall never come together, you and I.'

Narziss: 'There is no path by which we can come together, Goldmund.'

Goldmund: 'Don't speak so, Narziss.'

Narziss: 'It is my earnest. It is not our task to come together; as little as it would be the task of sun and moon, of sea and land. We two, my friend, are son and moon; sea and land. Our destiny is not to become one. It is to behold each other for what we are, each perceiving and honouring it in his opposite; each finding his fulfilment and completion.'

Goldmund hung down his head, discomfited: his face had grown sad. At last he answered:

'Is that why you so often mock my thoughts?'

Narziss delayed with his reply. Then, in a clear, hard voice, he said:

'Yes, that is why. And you must learn to bear with me, dear Goldmund, for not taking your thoughts more seriously. Believe me, I mark and study your every accent, and all your gestures, each smile that comes into your face. All that in your seems essential and necessary is real to me. Why therefore should I give your thoughts the place of honour in my mind – you, who have so many other gifts?'

Goldmund smiled sadly: 'I said you always think of me as a child.'

But Narziss was still inflexible: 'Some of your thoughts seem to me the thoughts of a child. Yet remember what we said a while ago; that a sharp-witted child need never be stupider than a scholar. It is only when children speak of science that scholars need not take them seriously.

Goldmund became impatient: 'But when I do not speak of science you mock me! You speak as though all my piety, and wish to make progress in my studies, and my longing to be a monk, were so much babbling.'

Narziss eyed him very gravely: 'When you are truly Goldmund you do not babble. But you are not always Goldmund. I long for nothing so much as to have you Goldmund through and through. You are no monk – no scholar. Scholars and monks may both be hewn of coarser wood. You fancy you are not learned enough for me, have too little logic, and are not pious enough. None of all these. Only – you are not enough yourself.'

Though here in their talk Goldmund, in perplexity, left his friend, with anger against him in his heart, not many days had passed before he himself wished to continue. And this time Narziss succeeded in showing him, in a clear, vivid image, such as he himself would use and accept, the true difference in their natures.

Narziss had talked himself hoarse: yet today, he felt, Goldmund had heard him more willingly, had let his words sink deeper into his soul, and already he began to have power on him. His success made him yield to the temptation to say even more than he had intended: he let his eloquence bear him onwards.

'Listen,' he said, 'I am only your superior in this: I am awake, whereas you are only half-awake, and at times your whole life is a dream. I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep, unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire, and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself. The task that brings us together, the whole aim and purpose of our friendship, is that you should learn from me how to do it. In you, Goldmund, nature and intellect, consciousness and the world of dreams, are set very far from one another. You have forgotten your childhood, which still stives up from the depths of your being, to possess you. It will always make you suffer till you heed it. But enough: awake, as I said, I am your superior. There I am stronger than you, and so I can help you. But in all things else, amice, you are mine, or rather you will be when you know yourself.'

Goldmund had listened keenly till the words 'You have forgotten your childhood.' On these he started and flinched, as though an arrow had pierced his body, though this was not perceived by Narziss, who spoke, as he often did, with half-shut eyes, or staring far away into the distance, as though, if he did not see, the words came easier. He had not observed how Goldmund's lips were shaking, nor how his face had begun to pale.

'Your superior – I?' stammered Goldmund; but only to have something to answer: it was as if his whole body had been lamed.

'To be sure,' Narziss concluded. 'Men of dreams, the lovers and the poets, are better in most things than the men of my sort; the men of intellect. You take your being from your mother's. You live to the full: it is given you to love with your whole strength, to know and taste the whole of life. We thinkers, though often we seem to rule you, cannot life with half your joy and full reality. Ours is a thin and arid life, but the fullness of being is yours; yours the sap of the fruit, the garden of lovers, the joyous pleasaunces of beauty. Your home is the earth, ours the idea of it. Your danger is to be drowned in the world of sense, ours to gasp for breath in airless space. You are a poet, I a thinker. You sleep on your mother's breast, I watch in the wilderness. On me there shines the sun; on you the moon with all the stars. Your dreams are all of girls, mine of boys –'

Goldmund had heard him open-eyed, and Narziss spoke with a kind of oratorical self-abandonment. Many of his words, like blades, had entered the heart of his friend. In the end the boy turned pale and closed his eyes, and when Narziss saw, and rose in sudden fear, Goldmund, white as death, could only whisper:

'Once I broke into sobs and wept before you; you remember. That must never happen again. I should never forgive myself, or forgive you either. Quick now, leave me! Let me alone! You have said some terrible words to me.'

Narziss was sick at heart. His thoughts had borne him away, since he felt that he spoke better than usual. Yet now he perceived, in consternation, that something in what he had just said had struck his friend a deathly blow; that in some way he had pierced to the quick of him. He found it hard to leave him at such a time, and so, for an instant, he lingered on, till the frown on Goldmund's forehead warned him. Then he went off in great confusion, leaving his friend in the solitude he needed. Though Goldmund wept, his tears were not enough to release the pent-up grief in his soul. In the agony of the deepest wound, and no hope at all of ever healing it – as if his friend had suddenly knifed him to the heart – he stood alone, panting heavily: his breath constricted as though by death, his face waxen, his hands limp at his sides. This was the old pain, only sharper; the old confusion in his spirit, the feeling that he must look on something horrible, something, it might be, too fearful to bear. And now there was no sobbing storm of tears to ease the anguish in his mind. Holy Mother of God, what was it then? Had something happened? Had he been struck to death? Had he killed a man? What terrible thing had they been saying?

He gasped like one that has drunk poison, was filled to bursting with the thought that now he must shake free of something deadly, some barb, stuck in his heart. He stumbled from the room, flinging his arms out like a swimmer, wandered, without knowing it himself, into the stillest, emptiest part of the enclosure, along corridors, down steps, into the air. He had come to the inner heart of the monastery, the central cloister; in the cool light a sweetness of roses lay on the warm air, chilled by stone.

Narziss in that hour had done unwittingly what for long it had been his conscious wish to do: he had named and exorcised the demon inhabiting his friend. Some one or other of his words had stirred a secret in Goldmund's breast, and his demon had reared up in agony. For long Narziss strayed through the schoolrooms, seeking his friend, but found him nowhere.

Goldmund stood in the shadow of the arches that open onto the little cloister garden: from the pillar above three heads of beasts peered down on him, three stone heads of dogs or wolves, and leered. His pain raged through his mind, finding no way to light, no way to reason. A shudder, as of death, clipped at his gullet: he looked up, not knowing what he did, at one of the capitals, saw over him the three heads of beasts, and at once it seemed that three wild heads crouched, grinning and howling, in his entrails.

'Now I must die at once,' he knew with a shudder. And then, shaking with his fear: 'Or else go mad, and so these beasts will devour me.'

Twitching and shuddering he sank down, huddled at the foot of the column; his pain too great, he had reached its uttermost limit. His face sank between his hands, to his mind came the darkness that he craved.

Abbot Daniel had had a bad day. Two of the elder monks had come before him, peevish, chiding, slandering one another to him, their father; complaining of some old, trivial, rankling difference, born of their spleen, which now, again, had roused them both to bitter strife. He had listened, though all too long, to their bickerings, admonished them, as he feared without success, and in the end sent them sternly away, each with his somewhat heavy penance. Then, worn out, he had gone down to pray in the nave, had said his prayer, and stood up unrefreshed, and so wandered forth to the inner cloister, led on by its faint scent of roses, to stand a minute snuffing in the air.

He came upon the scholar, Goldmund, stretched out there senseless on the flags, gazed down in horror and astonishment at his deathly quiet, the pallor of his cheeks, whose young body was, as a rule, so full of life. Today had surely been an evil one. And now this, to add to it all! He tried to raise the boy, but found himself too feeble for such a load. Then, sighing deeply, he went off, to call for two of the younger brothers to take him up, and carry him to the sick-ward, sent for Father Anselm, the leech, and lastly for Narziss to come before him, who soon was found, and did his bidding.

'You know already?' he asked him.

'Of Goldmund? Yes, father. They told me he was sick, or had injured himself, and I saw them carry him along.'

'Yes, I found him in a swoon, lying where he had no leave to be, in the inner cloister; and he is not injured, although unconscious. This does not please me. And I feel that you have a share in it, or at least that you must know how it came about. It was for that I sent for you. Speak.'

Narziss, as cold as ever in speech and bearing, gave a short account of what he had said to Goldmund, and how some unlooked-for power had wrought its effect on him. The abbot shook his head, displeased.

'That was strange talk,' he said, and forced his words to be calm. 'You have just described such a talk as might be described as an attack on another soul. It is, I might even say, the onslaught of a superior, a confessor. But you are not Goldmund's confessor: you are not confessor to any; you are not consecrated! How comes it then that you permit yourself to talk with this scholar as though you had spiritual warrant to instruct him of things which only a confessor has power in? As you see, the issue has been evil.'

Narziss answered softly but steadily:

'It is still to early, father, to judge the issue. I was somewhat startled by the violent effect of what I said, but I do not doubt that the issue of my talk with Goldmund will be to heal him.'

'That is to be seen. It was not that I sent for you to speak of, but your own action. What impelled you to say such things to this scholar?'

'He is my friend, as you know. I bear him a particular love, and feel I understand him very well. You tell me I spoke to him like a confessor. I only did so because I felt I know him better than he himself.'

The abbot shrugged:

'I know you have particular gifts. Let us hope you have done no lasting harm with them. Is Goldmund sick? Had he a fever? Had his nights been restless, or had he not been eating enough? Was there any pain in his body?'

'No, till today his body has been in health.'

'And otherwise?'

'His soul was ailing, father. You know he has long reached the age when men begin to struggle with carnal longing.'

'I know. He is seventeen.'

'Eighteen, father.'

'Eighteen. Well, late enough, then. But these are merely natural struggles, which every man encounters in his life. They would not be enough to make you call him sick in soul.'

'No, holy father, in themselves they would not be enough. But Goldmund's soul was sick already, had long been so, and therefore, for him, such struggles are more dangerous than for others. I think he is suffering now because he has forgotten some of his past.'

'Indeed. Which part of it, then?'

'His mother, and all that went along with her. I know no more of her than he. I only know that with her must lie some of his grief. He seems to know nothing of his mother; only that he lost her early, and yet he makes me feel he is ashamed of her, though from her he must have inherited most of his talents, since nothing of what he tells me of his father never shows me that father as the man to beget such a fair and goodly son. None of what I tell you is hearsay, father, I draw my own conclusions from certain signs.'

These last words set the abbot thinking. At first Narziss had seemed to him foolish, and arrogant, he had even smiled a little as he listened. Now he thought of Goldmund's father, the knight with the wizened face and tricking speech, and remembered, as he searched his mind, some words he had said of the boy's mother. She had shamed him, he declared, and run from him; in his son's mind he had striven to wipe out all memory of the vices which might be her legacy. And in this, said the knight, he had succeeded, and his son was ready to give himself to God, to expiate the sins of his mother's life.

Never before had the abbot been so little pleased with Narziss. And yet, how this thinker had hit the mark; how well he seemed to know his friend! He began to question him further, of all that had happened in their talk.

'It never was my intention to rouse in Goldmund the heavy grief and pain that assail him. I reminded him that he did not know himself, and said he had forgotten his mother, his childhood. Something in my words must have pierced his spirit, forcing its way down into the darkness in him, with which I had been struggling so long. He was as though beside himself: he stared at me as if he no longer knew me, as if he had forgotten his own name. I had often said to him that he slept, and had never in all his life been wide awake. Now he is awake, there can be no doubt of it.'

Here he was dismissed, without a penance, though with the command not to see his friend at present.

Father Anselm had had them lay the boy in bed, and now sat by his side to watch him. It seemed to him best to use no powerful means for bringing Goldmund to his senses, who looked as white as death, the old man thought, peering down out of kind, wrinkled eyes. He felt the pulse, and laid his hand on the heart. This lad, he said to himself, must be gorged with some monstrous dainty, a bunch of wood-sorrel, or some such thing. They were all alike! He could not look at his tongue.

Anselm was fond of Goldmund, though he never could abide his friend, Narziss, that puffed-up novice, too young to have ever been made a teacher. There was the mischief! That Narziss must have had some share in this silly mishap. What need had such a fresh and pleasant scholar, natural and open of heart, to consort with that arrogant pedant, so vain of his Greek that it seemed to him the only thing in the world!

When, long after this, the abbot opened the door of the sick ward, he found old Pater Anselm still peering anxiously. What a young, pretty, guileless face: yet all he could do was to sit and study it, longing to bring it back to life, yet unable to give any aid. To be sure, the lad might have the colic; he would prescribe him rhubarb and a cordial. But the longer he watched those sallow, distorted features, the more suspicious grew Pater Anselm. He had had his experience! Several times in his long life he had been with those possessed by devils. He hesitated, even to himself, to formulate the whole of his thought: he must wait and examine before he spoke. But, he reflected grimly, if this poor lad is struck down and bewitched, we shall not have far to seek for the culprit: and he shall answer for it in full!

The abbot came to the bed, bent gently down over the boy, and drew back one of his eyelids.

'Can you rouse him?' he asked.

'I would rather wait a little longer. His heart is sound. Nobody must approach him.'

'Is he in danger of death?'

'I do not think so. No wounds on his body, or trace of any blow or fall. He has only swooned. Perhaps it is the colic. Great pain will often rob us of our senses. If he had been poisoned there would be fever. No, he will come to himself and live again.'

'Might it not have come from his mind?'

'I would not say no. Is nothing known of it all? Someone may have caused him to take fright: some news of a death, or an insult and a violent quarrel. Then it would all be clear.'

'We know nothing. Have a care that none be let in to him. I beg you not to leave him till he wakes, father; and if he seems in danger call me, even in the middle of the night.'

Before he left, the old abbot bent again over the boy. He thought of the knight, his father, and the day when this pretty little yellow-head had been left here for schooling in the cloister, where they all took to him at once. He too had been glad to see him come. But in one thing Narziss had hit the mark: in no way did this boy resemble his father. Alas, how much grief there was in the world! How vain and useless all our strivings! Had he neglected the care of this poor boy? He he even given him the right confessor? Was it in order that, in their house, no others should know this scholar so well as Narziss? Could Narziss help him – a novice; neither monk nor consecrated priest? He, whose thoughts and opinions seemed all so arrogant, so full, almost, of hate? And God alone knew if this Narziss had not himself long been mishandled: God along could tell if all his obedience were not a mask, if at heart he were not a mere heathen. He, the abbot, would have to answer for everything that might one day come to these two young men.

When Goldmund woke it was dark. His head swam, no thoughts came into it. He could feel himself lying on a bed, but where he knew not. He strove, and yet nothing came to him. How had he travelled here: from what strange country of new knowledge? He had been in some far-off place, where he had seen some rare and glorious sights, terrible, and never to be forgotten. Yet now he was forgetting them all. When was it? What was this thing that had risen up before him, so dolorous, mighty, full of beauty, to fade out again? He strove to see far down into himself, to the deeps out of which this thing had come. What had it been? A covey of vain images swirled around him. He could see beasts' heads, three heads of dogs, and caught a whiff of roses in his nostrils. What pain he had felt! He shut his eyes. The terrible pain! He fell asleep.

Then he woke and saw the thing he sought, through a swiftly melting fog of dreams: saw the image, and hunched himself together in a pang of agony and joy. He could see – his eyes had been opened – the tall, shining woman, with full, red lips, her hair blown by the wind: his mother! And in that instant he heard a voice, or seemed to hear it, speak these words: 'You have forgotten your childhood.' He listened, thought; then remembered. Narziss' voice. Narziss! In a flash it was all before his eyes, he could see it all, it was all known. Oh, mother – mother! Mountains of rubbish had been levelled, oceans of forgetfulness dried up: from blue, shining eyes, like a queen, the lost woman smiled at him again, her image unutterably loved.

Pater Anselm, who had fallen asleep in his chair, beside the bed, awoke. He had heard the sick boy stir and draw in a breath. Gently he rose: 'Who's there?' asked Goldmund.

'Don't be scared. It's I – Father Anselm. I'll strike a light.'

He set a flame to the wick; it lighted up his kind, puckered face.

'But am I sick?' questioned the boy.

'You fell into a swoon, sonny. Give me your hand, and let me take your pulse. How do you feel yourself?'

'Well, thanks, Pater Anselm. You are very kind to me. I need nothing. I am only weary.'

'To be sure, you are weary. Soon you'll drop off again. Take a mouthful of spiced wine first, though. Here it is, all waiting for you. We'll empty a glass together for friendship's sake, lad.'

He had ready his pitcher of cordial, and the water boiled to go with it. 'You and I have both slept sound this long while,' chuckled the leech. 'You'll say I'm a fine surgeon to watch the sick, and too old to keep awake to do it. Well there – we're all of us human. And now let's drink this magic draught together. There's nothing so good as a tipple together in the night. Good health to you.'

Goldmund laughed, clinked cups, and drank with him. This hot cordial was spiced with cloves and gilliflowers, and sweetened with fine sugar-beet: he had never known so good a drink.

He remembered how once before he had been sick, and then Narziss had taken care of him: now it was Pater Anselm, and he was very gentle and kind. It made him laugh, it was all so fine and pleasant, to lie there in the night by lamplight and empty a cup of wine with the old physician.

'Have you a bellyache?' said the father.

'No.'

'And I who said you must have the colic! That's nothing, then. Put your tongue out. Well, once again, old Anselm has shown himself a fool! Tomorrow you'll stay warm in your bed, and I'll come along and take a look at you. Have you finished your wine? Good may it do you! Let's see, there may be a drop more of it. Well, if we share and share alike there'll be another half-cup for each of us. You scared us all finely, Goldmund. You lay out in the cloister like a corpse. Are you certain, now, you haven't a bellyache?'

They laughed, and shared the dregs of sick man's wine: from eyes that were clear and tranquil Goldmund looked up, happily and merrily. The old man went off to bed. Goldmund lay awake a while longer. Visions rose up slowly again in him, again there came to life in his soul the radiant, yellow-haired image of his mother. Her presence filled him through and through, like the sweet breeze blown across a hayfield; a breath of warmth, of life, tenderness, courage. Oh, mother, how could I ever have forgotten you?'