CHAPTER SIXTEEN

GOLDMUND spent a day of impatient happiness in the hills. If he had had a horse he would have ridden out that day to the cloister, to the Sorrowful Madonna of Master Nicholas. He longed to see her again, and seemed to remember that in the night he had had a dream of the dead Master. Well, he must go back to her later. Even should this happiness soon be over, should Agnes' love prove evil in the end – today she was in his blood, he could not miss an instant of her.

This morning he wanted to speak to nobody, but to spend this warm, autumn day with trees and clouds. He said to Marie that he wanted a day in the woods, and might not come back till late that night. Would she give him a good loaf to take with him, and not sit up, this time, for his return? She did not answer, only filled his pockets with bread and apples, brushed down his old, shabby jerkin, which she had patched the first day he came back to them, and let him go.

He crossed the river and climbed through empty vineyards, up, by their steep earthen steps, into the hills, losing himself, above, in the woods, and never stopped till he stood high up at the summit. The sun shone warm through bare branches, ouzels scurried off as he passed, to sit in the midst of their thickets, staring timidly out, through round, black eyes; while far below, in a long, blue curve, flowed the river, and the city lay, like a little, built-up toy. No sound of it could reach him here, save only the bells, tolling to prayers.

Here at the summit there were mounds grown over with turf, from the old heathen days, long ago; fortresses perhaps, or graves. On one of these he stretched himself out in the sunshine, where he could lie in the dry rustling autumn grass and see out across the whole wide valley, chain after chain, till peaks and sky hovered in a misty uncertainty. Through all the wide country stretched beneath him, and further still, his feet had strayed: all that, now memory and far off, had once been close, and in the present. He had slept a hundred times in those far woods, eaten berries, hungered in them, and frozen, toiled over the brows of those hills, been gay or merry, tired or vigorous. Somewhere, away among those distances, lay the charred bones of poor dead Lene; somewhere over there his companion, Robert, must wander still, if the plague had not stayed his feet: there, out of sight, Victor lay dead. Somewhere, enchanted and far off, there stood the cloister of his boyhood, somewhere the castle of the knight, in which he had lain with two young daughters: there, in rags and hunted, ran poor Rebecca, or else lay dead. These many places, set so far apart, these moors and forests, villages and cities, walled towns and cloisters – all these people, who might be either dead or still alive – in him were ever-present, and reunited. They dwelt together in his memory, his love, his longing, his regret. If he died tomorrow they would all separate, be lost again, and the pictures in the book wiped out, of women, love, and winter nights, and summer mornings. Oh, it was high time to accomplish something, carve out some figures to leave behind him; something with longer life in it than he. Small fruit was born of all these wanderings, these years since he escaped into the world. He had saved so little from time; a few figures, carved and left in a workshop, the best of them all his Johannes – and now this unreal picture-book in his head, his fair and agonized image-world of memories. Could he ever manage to rescue some of them, setting them forth, for all to see? Or would his life go on like this to the end, always with new cities, new country, new women, fresh experience, other pictures, one piled up over the other, from which at last he would have nothing, save the restless, painful beauty in his heart? Life tricked so shamelessly. It was enough to make men laugh or weep. A man could live, letting his senses have free rein, sucking his fill at the breasts of Eve, his mother – and then, though he might revel and enjoy, there was no protection against her transience, and so, like a toadstool in the woods, he shimmered today in the fairest colours, tomorrow rotted, and fell to dust.

Or he could set up his defences against life, lock himself into a workshop, and seek to build a monument beyond time. And then life herself must be renounced; the man was nothing but her instrument: though he might serve eternity he withered, he lost his freedom, fullness, and joy of days. Such had been the fate of Master Nicholas.

And yet our days had only a meaning if both these goods could be achieved, and life herself had not been cleft by the barren division of alternatives. To work and yet not pay life's price for working: to live, yet not renounce the work of creation. Couldn't it ever be done?

Some men could do it, perhaps. There might be husbands, and honest fathers of families in the world, whose senses had not been blunted by their fidelity. There might be industrious burghers whose hearts had not been tamed and rendered barren, by their lack of danger and its freedom. Perhaps. He had met none yet.

All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker – no breath could be both in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential. Perhaps it was easier for women. Nature had made them so that, with them, their passion brought its fruit, and so a child was born out of their happiness. Men had no such simple fruitfulness but, instead, an eternal craving, never appeased. Was the god who fashioned all this malicious and evil – did he laugh at the pain in his own creation? No, it could be no evil god who had made the roes and harts in the forest, fishes and birds, trees and flowers, spring and autumn. And yet this cleft ran through his work, whether it were less perfect than his intention, or he, the god, had a hidden purpose in this lack, this never-satisfied hunger in all his kind. Perhaps it was a seed, sown by the enemy: original sin. But were not all beauty and sanctity born of this same 'sin' in human beings, all that man had fashioned with his hands, and then given it back to the god?

Sad with these thoughts, he turned his eyes upon the city, spied out the market, and the fish-market, the bridges, churches, and council-house. Then he saw the bishop's stately palace, where now Count Heinrich held his court. Among these towers, beneath these long, sloping roofs, dwelt Agnes, fairer than any queen, who looked so proud, and could be so lost and humbled by her love. He remembered last night with grateful joy. To have felt the glory of that one night every love in his past had been necessary, all his schooling in women for this one woman, all that he had learned in need and wandering, every night through which he had had to tramp in snow, his kinship with beasts and flowers, trees, and waters, butterflies and fishes. It had needed all the quickened lust of senses sharpened by danger as by love, all the cravings of a lonely wanderer, the image-world, graven within him by the years, to bring his woman so much joy. For so long as his days remained a garden in which such flowers as Agnes could still flourish, he need not complain.

He wandered the whole day long on autumn summits, walking, resting, eating bread, thinking of Agnes and the night. By sundown he was back in the city, before the castle. It was chilly now, and houses stared with fixed red eyes through the dark. A troop of little boys came singing past him, carrying turnips, cut into faces, on poles, which they waved aloft, with flaming torches stuck in the heads. This little rout of mummers brought winter with it, and Goldmund let it pass him with a smile. For a time he loitered outside the palace. The embassy of prelates was still with the count, and, here and there, at one of the high windows, a ghostly father stood, looking out. Goldmund, at last, succeeded in creeping through the door and, within, found the tire-woman, Bertha. Once again she hid him in her wardrobe, till Agnes came, and let him softly into the bedchamber. Tenderly her beauty welcomed him, but she was sad, her mind was full of cares, and he had great pains to cheer her a little. Slowly, under his kisses and love-words, she roused herself, and began to take comfort.

'You can be so gentle,' she told him gratefully, 'you have such deep, sure notes in your voice, my bird, when you prattle and chirrup, deep in your throat. I love you, Goldmund. Oh, if we were only away from here! I Hate it here, though soon it will be over, anyway. The count is summoned back to the Emperor, and the silly bishop will soon be here again. But today the count is surly, the priests have angered him. Oh, Goldmund, never let him see you! You would not live another hour. I fear so much what may happen.'

He remembered a half-forgotten voice – surely he had heard this song already! Lydia had said such things to him, with the same gentle, fearful, loving sadness. It was thus she had come stealing to his bedside, full of love yet restless with her fears. It pleased him, this anxious, tender song. What worth were any love without its secrecy? Could there be any love without love's dangers? Gently he drew her close, stroking her, holding her hands, murmuring small enticements in her ears, kissing her eyebrows. It touched, and filled him with delight, to find her so uneasy and full of care. Gratefully, almost with humility, she took and answered his caresses, preening herself against him, full of love, although she could find no merriment or peace. Suddenly she started wildly: somewhere, not far off, a door slammed to, and quick steps came towards the bedroom.

'Oh God, he's here!' she whispered desperately, 'the count! Quick – you can slip out through the wardrobe. Don't betray me.'

Already she had thrust him among her robes, and he stood alone, fumbling in the darkness. From the room beyond, the count's loud voice was heard, with Agnes. He felt his way from gown to gown, gingerly, one foot before the other. Now he was beside the passage door, and gently tried to pull it open. Only then, as he found it locked on the further side, did he too start, and his heart stand still, then suddenly beat wildly and painfully. It might be by some unlucky chance that this door had been locked since he entered; he could not think it. He had walked into a trap, and was lost. Someone must have watched him creep in here. It would cost him his neck. He remembered her last words, 'Don't betray me.' No – he would not … he set his teeth and waited. His heart still thumped, but fresh resolution steeled him.

All this had only lasted a few instants. Now the hither door was thrust open, and from Agnes' chamber came the count, with a torch and a drawn sword. Goldmund, in the very last instant, snatched robes and cloaks off the pegs, and huddled them together, over his arm. Let them take him for a thief; perhaps it would be a way out.

The count had spied him at once. He came on slowly.

'Who are you, sirrah. What are you doing? Answer me, or I thrust against you.'

'Forgive me,' Goldmund mumbled, 'I am a poor man, lord, and you are so rich, I'll give it all back. See here.'

He laid the robes on the floor.

'So – a thief. Is that it? You were a fool to lose your life for a few old cloaks. Are you a citizen here?'

'No, lord – I am homeless....A poor man....You will be merciful?'

'Silence. One other thing you shall tell me. Were you saucy enough to accost the gracious lady? But, since you'll hang in any case, we need go no further into that. Your theft suffices.'

He hammered on the locked door into the passage.

'You out there – unlock the door.'

The door was opened from outside. Three churls with drawn daggers stood in readiness.

'Tie him fast,' bellowed the count, in a voice hoarse with anger and disdain. 'This knave crept in here to steal. Lock him up, and, tomorrow at daybreak, set the cur dangling from the gallows.'

Goldmund's wrists were tied, without any protest from him. He was led off down the long passage, down steps, across the inner courtyard, with a varlet in front, bearing a torch. They halted at an arched cellar-door, thick-studded with nails, and began to gossip. This door had no key to it. One took the torch, and the varlet ran back to fetch the key. Thus they stood, waiting outside his prison, the three armed men and their prisoner.

The torch-bearer examined Goldmund curiously, holding the light close to his face. In that instant came two priests over the courtyard, of whom there were so many as guests in the castle. They had come from the chapel, and halted now before the group, drawn by the light, and this night-scene: the three armed churls with a bound prisoner, who stood there waiting for the key.

Goldmund did not heed these priests, or give any answer to his gaolers. He saw nothing but the flame in the wind, held close before his eyes, and blinding him. Behind this waving light came glimpses of a terrible darkness, fading off into something huge and monstrous – a shapeless, horrible apparition; the hole into which he would fall, the abyss, the end. He was deaf and blind to all but that. One of the priests had begun to question a churl. When he learned that this was a thief, and must hang at daybreak, he asked if the fellow had had a confessor. No, they replied, he had just been caught red-handed. 'Then,' said the father, 'tomorrow I will come to him early, before first mass, with the last sacraments, to shrive him. You are to answer for his not being led out to death until I have seen him and done this. I will speak to my lord the count of it tonight. 'This man may be a thief, but he has the right of every Christian to confess, and make his peace with God.'

The gaolers dared no contradiction. They knew this priest for one of the embassy, and had seen him dine with the count, at the high table. Besides, why should this poor knave not have his priest and his assoilment?

The Paters went their way. Goldmund had heeded none of this. At last the servant returned, and the door was opened. They led the prisoner down to a vaulted chamber; he stumbled as they pushed him down the steps. A few three-legged stools stood round a table, since this was the outer vault of a wine-cellar. They pointed to a stool and bade him sit. 'There'll be a priest,' said one, 'in the morning to shrive you.' Then they went out, carefully locking the heavy door.

'Leave us a light, brother,' Goldmund begged.

'No, little brother, you might do harm with it. You'll be well enough. Be wise, and accustom yourself. And how long would a rush-light last you? In an hour it would be out. Good night.'

Now he sat alone in the dark. He laid his head down on the table: it was cramped and painful to sit thus, and the thongs on his wrists seared like flames. But this he only knew much later. At first he sat, with his forehead on the table as though on a headsman's block, striving to make his body and senses realize all that was now imposed upon his mind. He must bow his will, and give himself up to what would be – make himself know how soon he would be dead.

He sat on thus a long while, miserably cramped, and striving with all his might to take this horror into himself, and know it; breathe it, let it fill him from top to toe. Night was around him, and the end of that night would bring mere darkness. He must strive to learn that tomorrow he would have ceased to be. There he would dangle, and be a thing, on which birds could perch, and peck their fill of it; he would be as Master Nicholas was, and Lene was, lying in her ashes, as all those many hundreds had been, at whom he had stared in empty, plague-stricken houses, or heaped, one over the other, on the death-carts. It was hard to make himself feel it deeply, let it become a part of his being. It was even impossible to think of it. There were so many things from which he had never managed to free his heart, of which he had taken no farewell. These night-hours were granted him for this.

First he must take his leave of Agnes. He would never see her tall beauty again, her sunny yellow hair, her cold blue eyes; nor watch the trembling pride die out of them, know the sweet, pale gleam of scented flesh. He had hoped to kiss her again so often. Ah, even today out in the hills, in the warm autumn sunlight, how he had thought of her; how he had longed for her, needed her. But hills, and sun, and blue, white-clouded sky – of all that too he must take his leave. No trees, no woods, no wandering, no day or night, no seasons any more. Perhaps Marie would still be waiting up for him, poor Marie, with her limp and her gentle eyes, dozing and waking in the kitchen, and still no Goldmund had come home.

Ah, those sheets with all the drawings, his hopes of figures he would carve. Gone! Gone! And his other hope of seeing Narziss, St John the beloved – he must forget it.

Then he must take leave of his hands, his eyes; of thirst and hunger, food and drink, of love and lute-playing, sleep and waking: of all. Tomorrow a bird would skim through the air, and Goldmund have no eyes to watch it with, a girl stand singing at her window, and he have no ears for her song; the river would flow on and on, the dumb, shadowy fish swim with it, a wind spring up, and strip the yellow leaves to earth; there would be a moon, and glittering stars, young men would go out to dance at Christmas fairs, the first snows whiten the distant hills – and all these things would be for ever, each tree spreading out its shadow, men with joy or mirth in their living eyes, and all without him; none of it his! They would have torn his body away from it.

He seemed to taste the morning wind on moors, the sweet new wine, and young, firm walnuts, while into his fearful heart, like a memory, there crept the sudden realization of all the colour in the world, a dying pageant of farewells as the wild beauty of earth swept through his senses. He hunched himself up and broke into sobs, could feel tears scold and trickle down his cheeks; moaning, he let this wave of grief sweep over him, crouched, and gave himself up to endless woe. Alas, you valleys and wooded hills, you streams grown about with alders, you maids at night, on moonlit bridges, fair, glittering world of living things. How shall I go from you?

He lay and wept, bent far over the table, a child refusing to be comforted, called from his direst grief, in a sigh born of the deepest need: 'Oh mother! Oh mother!'

An image answered this magic name as he said it, her shape, from the secrecy of his heart. Not the mother he had longed to carve in wood, the Eve of his craftsman's thoughts and dreams, but the very mother he remembered, clearer and more living than he had seen her since the dream he had had of her in Mariabronn. To her he complained, sobbed out this intolerable thought, gave himself over to her protection, gave her the sunshine and the woods, his eyes, his hands, his life, into her care again.

In the midst of his tears he fell asleep. Exhaustion enfolded him like her arms. Lulled by her, and rescued from his grief, for an hour or two he slumbered heavily.

Then he awoke in the sharpest pain. His fettered wrists still burned like fire, while down his back and shoulders ran darting agony. He sat up stiffly, and knew the reality that surrounded him. He was in the midst of utter blackness, could not tell how long he had been asleep, nor how many hours of life might still be left him. They might come any instant now! He remembered the priest who had been promised him.

Not that his sacraments meant much; nor could he tell if even the most perfect assoilment would bring his soul into a heaven. He did not care if any heaven existed, or the Father with His judgements, or any eternity. All this had long been hazy in his mind.

He had no care for any heaven. He wanted nothing but the passing, uncertain life of earth – but the breathe, and be at home in his own skin. He wanted nothing but to live!

Crazed with sudden terror he stood up, and fumbled through the blackness to the wall, leaned against the stone, and started to think. Surely there must be a hope. This priest might bring him a reprieve. Perhaps he was so sure of the prisoner's innocence that he had put in a word on his behalf, would manage a delay, and help him escape. He set his whole mind on this one thought, thinking it again and again. Even if all this should prove nothing, still his game was not lost, he would go on hoping. First, then, he must win over this priest, strain every nerve to charm, and flatter and convince him. Everything else was dream and possibility; the priest was the one good card left in his hands, though, nonetheless, there were still hazards and chances. The hangman might be sick of a colic, the gallows break, some accident, none of them had foreseen, bring him his chance to get away. Never would he let them hang him! He had striven in vain to accept this destiny, now he would keep it off to the very end, trip up his gaoler, knock the hangman down, struggle to the last drop of his blood. Ah, if he could only bring this priest to the point of untying these cords!

How infinitely much would be gained by that! Meanwhile, not caring for any pain, he struggled to server them with his teeth.

In a cruelly long time, with the maddest efforts, he managed to loosen them a little. He stood, panting in the darkness, with swollen arms and throbbing hands. When his breath returned he crept further and further along the wall, feeling the damp stone, inch by inch, to make certain it had no jutting edges. Then he remembered the stairs down which they had thrust him, sought and found, and crouched down under them, to try and sever the thongs on the edge of a step. It was hard to manage, since his wrist-bones kept grating against the stone. It seared his flesh; he could feel his hands wet.

Still he persisted, and when at last a spare grey streak began to glimmer under the door, the cords were worn so thin that he could sever them. He had done it. His hands were free!

Yet now he could scarcely move a finger, since his arms were numb, and swollen to the shoulders. He tried to force the blood to flow back into them.

Now he had a plan which seemed good to him. If this priest would not help his escape, and they let the man alone, even to shrive him, he would strike him down – one of the stools would serve his turn, his hands were still too weak for throttling – crack his skull with the stool, strip off his habit, and get away in it. And then – run, run. Marie would take him in and hide him. It was worth trying. It was possible.

Never in all his life before had Goldmund awaited daybreak so impatiently, longed for it, watched for it, and yet feared it. He watched, with a huntsman's eye, the thin grey streak under the door as slowly, very slowly, it brightened. Then he went back to the table, and practised how he would sit, hunched up on the stool, in such a way that they should not see at once that his wrists were free again.

Now that he had his hands death seemed unreal to him. He would come out alive, if he shattered the whole world to do it. His body twitched with longing to be free. Who could tell – help might come from outside. Agnes was only a woman, and not very powerful. She might be afraid: she might let him die for her own sake. But still, she loved him, and something, perhaps, she would attempt. Her tire-woman, Bertha, might already be creeping to the door, and was there not a squire she said was faithful? And if none came to him with a message he had his own plan, ready to execute. Should it go awry he would fell his keepers with a stool – two, three, or as many as they sent. He had this advantage – that his eyes were used to the dark. Now, in the twilight, he could see every shape and mass around him, whereas the others would be purblind.

He crouched behind the table, eagerly watching the spare increase of light under the door, forcing himself to plan out in advance each word he would say to the priest, since that at least must be attempted. The instant which he had dreaded an hour since, he longed for so that, now, he could scarcely wait for it. This strained alertness had grown unbearable. His strength, his quickness, his resolve, must gradually lose their edge if they kept him waiting. Surely this priest and gaoler would be here before the will to live had ebbed in him.

At last the world outside began to rouse itself, and so the enemy was upon him. Steps clattered over the yard, a key was thrust into the lock: it turned, and each of these sounds, after the long quiet and dark, seemed like a thunderclap.

Now the heavy door swung open slowly, on grating hinges. The priest came into him alone, unescorted by any gaoler or serving-man, and carrying a sconce with double flames. Already something unforeseen by the prisoner.

And how strange and moving to behold: this priest whose invisible hand closed the door behind him, wore the well-known habit of Mariabronn, the habit of his home, the cloister; the habit worn by Abbot Daniel, by Pater Anselm, by Pater Martin. The sight of it stirred him so that he had to turn away his eyes. This might be the promise of rescue. Yet perhaps there would be no other way but to kill him. He set his teeth. It would be hard to strike down this priest.