CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

'PRAISE be Jesus Christ,' said the Pater, and set down his sconce on the table. Goldmund hung his head, and mouthed a response.

The monk said nothing. He stood expectant, without a word, till Goldmund, grown uneasy, raised curious eyes.

The prisoner's confusion increased, as he saw that this monk not only wore the habit of Mariabronn, but the abbot's cross and ring along with it. Then he looked this abbot full in the face, firm and clearly outlined, with the thinnest of lips; a face he knew. Goldmund, as though enchanted, stared at this face, which seemed all formed of will and intellect. Uncertainly he put his hand to the sconce, raised the light, held it close to the stranger's eyes. He saw, and the flames were trembling as he set it back upon the table.

'Narziss,' he whispered, almost inaudibly. Everything swirled before his eyes.

'Yes, Goldmund, I was Narziss once, but now it is long since I laid aside that name. Have you forgotten that I took the name of John when I was consecrated?'

Goldmund was moved to the heart. For him the world had changed its aspect. The strain of the last hours suddenly loosened: he shook all over, and giddiness made his head an empty bladder, his belly heaved, hot tears scalded behind his eyes, sobs threatened to shake his whole body. To sink weeping to his knees, as in a swoon – everything within him longed for that.

But out of the depths, which this sight of Narziss opened up in him, there arose a warning memory of his boyhood. Once, as a boy, he had sobbed, and let emotion drown him, before this fair, grave face, these omniscient eyes. That he must never do again. Here like a ghost, at this most crucial hour of his whole life, Narziss had come, and it seemed he brought him his reprieve. Should he stand again, weeping before his friend, sink down at his feet in a swoon? No! No! No! He must control himself, rein in his heart, and force his guts to obey him, sweep away the giddiness from his mind. No weakness now! He managed to answer, in a voice artfully controlled:

'You must let me call you Narziss still.'

'Call me that, o amici. But why not give me your hand?'

Again Goldmund forced his spirit to answer on a note of schoolboy mockery, just as he had often done in the old days:

'Forgive me, Narziss,' he said, a little coolly and wearily. 'I see they have turned you into an abbot. I am still nothing but a vagrant. And much as I would like a long talk with you, I fear we shall never be able to have it. For, listen, Narziss; I go to the gallows in half an hour! This I only tell you to make it clear.'

Narziss' expression had not changed. This grain of boastfulness and boy's courage still in his friend touched him, and yet amused him highly. Truly he had imagined a different meeting, and yet this little comedy won his heart. Nothing that Goldmund could have said would have been a surer way back to his love.

'As to the gallows,' he said, as careless as Goldmund, 'make your mind easy on that. You are pardoned. I am commissioned to tell you this, and take you along with me. You must not stay here in the city. So there's time enough to tell each other this and that. Well, now, will you give me your hand?'

They clasped hands and stood a long while, their hearts stirred deeply by this touch, though their words, for a little longer, remained full of comedy and pretence.

'Good then, Narziss – let us leave this ignominious retreat. So I am to join you as a follower. Do we go back to Mariabronn? That's good … But how? On horseback? Better still. But then I shall need a horse to come with you.'

'You shall have your horse, my friend, and within two hours we must set out. Oh – but your hands. In Jesus' name – all gashed and bleeding. Ah, Goldmund, what have they been doing to you?'

'Let be, Narziss. It was I who wounded my own hands. I was bound, and wanted to break free, and it wasn't easy, I can tell you. Do you know it was very valiant of you to come in to shrive me, without an escort!'

'Valiant? But why? There was no danger.'

'Oh no – no danger at all – except that I might crack your skull. That was what I had planned, you see. They told me I should have a priest, and so I thought I would strike him down, and take his habit to escape in. It was a good plan.'

'So you wanted to live, then?'

'Assuredly. Though I never thought that would send me Narziss to shrive my soul.'

'All the same,' Narziss hesitated, 'it was an ugly plan to have in mind. Would you in truth have struck down the priest who had come to shrive you for your death?'

'Not you, Narziss – naturally I would never have struck you down. And perhaps not any of your monks. But any other priest – oh yes, believe me!'

Suddenly his voice grew sad.

'It would not have been the first man I had killed.'

They were silent. Both felt uneasy.

'As to all that,' said Narziss, in an even voice, 'we shall have the time to talk of it. It you like I will hear your confession. Or tell me of your life, if you would rather. I shall be glad to hear. Let us go.'

'One minute first, Narziss. I've remembered something. I named you “John” myself, once.'

'I don't understand.'

'No, how should you? It was many years since that I gave you the name of St John, and now you must bear it for ever. You see, I was once a carver and image-maker, and so I hope to be again. And the best statue I ever cut in those days was a young saint in wood, done in your likeness, though I called it St John, and not Narziss. It is St John the Disciple, under the rood.'

He rose, and went to the door.

'You've thought of me, then?' asked Narziss softly.

And Goldmund, in the same low voice:

'Oh, yes, Narziss – again and again.'

He gave the heavy door a shove, and the pale morning lighted them both. They said no more. Narziss led him on to his own guest-chamber. There a young monk was busy, packing their traps. Goldmund was given a meal, and his wrists bound up for the time being. Very soon the horses were led out.

As they mounted, Goldmund said:

'I have one more wish. Let us take the way across the Fish-Market. There's someone there I want to see.'

They all rode off. Goldmund looked up at every window of the palace, to make sure that Agnes was not in one of them. But he did not get another sight of her. They rode on, over the Fish-Market. Marie had been terrified for his safety. He took leave of her, and of her parents, promised to be back soon, and they rode away. She stood at the door looking after him till all the riders were out of sight. Slowly she limped back into the house.

They rode four abreast: Narziss, Goldmund, the young monk, and an armed churl.

'Can you still remember Bless, my pony, who had his stall in the cloister?' Goldmund asked.

'To be sure. You won't find him now, though, and I know you never expected you would. It must be seven or eight years now, since we had to slaughter him.'

'Ah, you remember that?'

'Oh yes. I remember.'

Goldmund did not grieve for his pony's death, but was glad indeed that Narziss should remember him so clearly – he who gave small thought to any animal, and certainly would never have known the name of any other horse in the cloister stall. This thought rejoiced him.

'You'll laugh,' he began, 'that first I ask for news of my poor little pony. That was uncivil of me. Indeed, I have better things to ask you, and would know first of Abbot Daniel. But since you are the abbot now, he must be dead. And I do not wish to ask of nothing but death. This is a bad time to speak of death to me, both from last night, and because of the plague, of which I saw all too much on the roads. But all's one now, and we all die some day! Tell me when and how Abbott Daniel died. I honoured him greatly. And is Pater Martin alive? And Pater Anselm? I have had no news at all of any of you. But at least I rejoice that the plague has passed you by, although I never thought you could be dead. Always in my heart I knew that we should meet again. Yet beliefs can trick us, and this I know to my cost, since my master, Master Nicholas, the wood-carver, whom I never could think of as dead, and counted firmly on working with him again, had vanished for ever when I came back to him.'

'All's quickly told,' said Narziss. 'Abbot Daniel died so long as eight years since, without sickness or any pain. I am not his successor. I have only been abbot since last year. He was succeeded by Pater Martin, who governed the school, as you remember, and died a year ago, at close on seventy. And Pater Anselm is also dead. He loved you, and would often speak of you. In his last years he could not so much as walk any more, and to lie gave him great pain, since he died of the dropsy. Yes, and the plague has been with us, too. Let's not talk of it! Have you any more to ask?'

'Surely I have – and much. About everything. How came you here, to the Bishop's city, and the stattholder?'

'That's a long story and it would weary you. There is so much policy in it. The count is a favourite of the Emperor and, in certain matters, has full power from him, and at present there is much to set to rights between the Emperor and our order. The order gave me commission to treat with the count. My success was small.'

He was silent, and Goldmund asked no more. Nor was he ever to learn how, when last night, Narziss had begged for his life he had had to pay for it with concessions, or the surly count would never have granted it.

They rode. Goldmund felt very weary, and soon had pains to sit his horse. After a long silence Narziss asked him:

'Is it true they took you as a thief? The count would have it you crept into the castle to steal gear from the inner rooms.'

Goldmund laughed. 'Sure enough that was how it seemed. I am not a thief, but I had a meeting with his leman. I am amazed he let me go so easily.'

'It wasn't so easy as all that.'

They could not do the stage they had set themselves. Goldmund was too weary to ride further, and his hands refused to hold the bridle. That night they lodged in a village, where he was put to bed in a low fever, and so lay on there, all next day. Then he could ride again, and soon, when his hands were better, he enjoyed the feel of his horse. It was a long time now since he had ridden one. He revived, and felt young and full of life, raced the groom for miles for a wager, and then, at times, assailed Narziss with a hundred impatient, eager questions. Narziss let him ask his fill. He had fallen under Goldmund's spell again, and loved this stream of doubts and demands, all made in the boundless trust of his own capacity to resolve them.

'One thing I wanted to ask you, Narziss. Did you ever burn Jews?'

'Burn Jews? Why should we? There are no Jews anywhere near Mariabronn.'

'Understand me, Narziss. I mean this. Can you image any instance in which you would give your consent to have Jews slaughtered, or command it? There have been so many dukes and bishops, and burgomasters, and other such lords, giving these orders.'

'I myself would not give such an order. But it might well be that I should have to stand by, and watch the cruelty.'

'You would bear with it, then?'

'Certainly, if I had not the power to prevent it. Did you see any Jews burn, Goldmund?'

'Oh yes – '

'Well, and did you prevent it? No? So you see – '

Goldmund told him the story of Rebecca, and, as he told, grew fiery and full of grief.

'And so,' he added angrily, 'what a world is this, in which we must live. Is it not a sort of hell? It is horrible, and fills me with rage.'

'Certainly. Such is the world.'

'Well,' cried Goldmund, 'how often did you tell me once that the world was divine, a great harmony of circles, so you said, in the centre of which the Creator sits on His throne, and that all which He has fashioned is good, and so on, and so on. And you said all that stands written in Aristotle and St Thomas! I am anxious to hear you unravel such contradictions.'

Narziss laughed.

'Your memory is admirable. And yet you have made a few mistakes. I have always honoured the Creator as perfect, but never His work. I have never denied the evil in the world. That man is good, or our earthly life just, and full of harmony – that, my friend, is more than any sound thinker has ever said. More it stands clear in Holy Writ that all the strivings and dreams in our hearts are imperfect, and this is proved every day.'

'Good. Now at last I see how you have learned to judge of it. So men are evil, you say, and our life on earth is full of meanness and horror: that you admit, then. But somewhere behind, hidden in your thoughts and books of precepts, you discover a justice, and a perfection. They are there, and can be proved, but nobody uses them.'

'You have managed to store up much gall against us theologians, o amice. But with all that you are not a thinker yet. You confuse it all, and there is still a little for you to learn. Why do you say we make no use of the idea of justice? We do that every day, and every hour of the day. I, for example, am an abbot, and have my cloister to govern, and in that cloister they are just as imperfect and full of faults as any in the world outside. Yet again and again, unceasingly, we set the idea of justice against the original sin of our nature, strive to measure our imperfect lives by it, seek to arrest the evil, and keep ourselves in firm relationship with God.'

'Ah, no, Narziss – it was not you I meant. I never said you were not a good abbot. But I think of Rebecca, and the burning Jews, and the death-holes, and the great death in all the houses and streets, when plague-corpses rotted and stank, and all the horror and desolation! I think of the children straying the roads, without kith or kin, or any to shelter them, or yard-dogs, famished on their chains … and when I see it all before my eyes again, it seems to me as if our mothers had born us into a world of fiends. It would be better if we had never been, and God never made this terrible earth, nor the Saviour hung uselessly on the cross for it.'

Narziss nodded gently:

'You are right,' he answered. 'Speak all your heart, and tell me everything. But in one thing you are very wide of the mark. You mistake all these for your thoughts, but they are your feelings – the feelings of a man stung to action by the cruelty of life. And never forget that other, very different feelings may be set over against this despair. When you feel yourself at one with your horse, and so ride out through a pleasant country – or when, without knowing how it may end, you creep at night into a castle to pay your court to the count's leman, the world seems a very different place to you, and not all the burning Jews and plague-stricken houses can hinder you from seeking your desire in it. Is that not true?'

'To be sure it is. Yet it is just because the world is so full of death that I must ever find new comfort for my heart. I find a desire, and so, for an hour, I forget death. But, nonetheless, death is always with me.'

'You said that well. Good, then; you find yourself in a world of death and horror, and so, to escape them, you fly to lust. But lust soon fades; it dies and leaves you in the wilderness.'

'Yes, so it is.'

'And so it is for most other men, amice, though few care to feel it so deeply, or say it so vividly, as you do. And fewer still have any need in them to make themselves aware of what they feel. But tell me this: besides this desperate running to and fro from horror to desire, and back again, this juggler's sport with your love of life and fear of death – have you sought any other way to happiness?'

'Oh yes, indeed. I tried to find my happiness as a carver. I told you how I had once been that. One day when I had been perhaps two years on the roads, I entered a cloister-church, and found there a Blessed Virgin in wood, who troubled my heart so much with her beauty, and held me so, that I sought out the Master who had carved her. I found him, and he was a famous guildsman. I became his apprentice, and worked two years with him.'

'Later you shall tell me more of that. But what comfort did your carving bring you? What did it mean?'

'It meant the conquest of all that perishes. I saw that out of this zanies'-tumble and death-dance, something can remain of our lives, and survive us – our images. Yet they, too, perish in the end. They are buried, or they rot, or are broken again. And yet their lives are longer than any human life, so that, behind the instant that passes, we have, in images, a quiet land of shrines and precious shapes. To work at these seemed good and comforting to me, since it is almost a fixing of time for ever.'

'Your words delight me, Goldmund, and I hope you will carve many more of such fair images. My trust in your skill is great. In Mariabronn you must be our guest for a long while, and allow me to set you up a workshop there. It is years since our cloister had a craftsman. Yet I think that, by your definition, you have not exhausted all the wonders of art. I believe the truest images to have more in them than that something alive, and there for all to see, should be made permanent, and so rescued from death. I have seen many works of painters and carvers, many saints and madonnas, of which I do not believe that they are true copies of the shape of any single person, who lived once, and whose form and colour were caught and preserved by the maker.'

'You are right,' cried Goldmund, 'and I never should have thought you could know so well what a true craftsman can do. The pattern of any good image is no real, living form, or shape, although such shapes may have prompted the maker to it. Their true first pattern is not in flesh and blood, but in the mind. Such images have their home in the craftsman's soul. And in me, too, Goldmund, there live such images, which one day I shall hope to fashion, and show you.'

'I am very glad. But see, amice, how, without knowing it, you have strayed into the midst of philosophy, and given words to one of her secrets.'

'You should not mock me.'

'And I do not. You have spoken of “first patterns” – of images without existence save in the soul of the carver, but which he transmutes into matter, making them visible. So that, long before such a carver's shapes can be seen, and so obtain their formal reality, they are there already, as forms within his soul. And this same “first pattern” – this shape – is, to a hair, what old philosophers called “the idea”.'

'That sounds true enough.'

'Well, but once you speak of ideas, you have wandered into the realm of intellect, into our world of theologians and philosophers, and so you admit that, in all this confusion and pain of the battlefield – this endless, weary dance of death of our living and corporeal substance, there is a spirit which fashions for eternity. Listen, I have always perceived this spirit in you, ever since you first came to me as a boy. But yours are not philosopher's thoughts, though they are that in you which has shown you your way out of the maze and sorrow of our senses, the restless tides of despair and lust. Ah, Goldmund – it makes me very happy to have heard you speak as you did. I have been waiting for that since those old days, ever since the night when you left your teacher, and found the courage to be yourself. Now we have found each other again.'

And it seemed, in that instant, to Goldmund, as though his life had taken a meaning – he seemed to see it all, as if from above, with a clear view of its three divisions: his dependence on Narziss; the time of his freedom and wandering; his return into harmony with himself, the ripening and fruitfulness of harvest.

The vision faded. But now he had found a worthy relationship with his friend. Narziss was no longer the master, he the disciple. They were free and equal, and able to help each other. He could be this abbot's guest without reluctance, since Narziss had seen in him his peer. As they cantered together along the roads, he dreamed, with ever-growing desire and happiness, of the day when he would reveal himself to Narziss, setting forth the life of his spirit, in many shapes. Sometimes, however, there came misgivings.

'Narziss,' he warned him, 'I fear you reckon without your host. Do you know whom you have bidden to the cloister? I am no monk and never shall be. I know the three great vows, and though I have nothing to say against poverty, chastity and obedience I abhor. While, as for fervour, there is scarcely a grain of it left in me. It is years since I prayed, or had myself shriven, to take the sacrament.'

Narziss did not let this ruffle him:

'You seem to have turned into a heathen. But we have no fear of any such. You need not be so proud of your many sins. You have lived the common life of the world, and herded swine with all the other prodigals, till now you no longer know that rule, and good order, have any meaning. Certainly you would make a very bad monk. But I never asked you to join the order. All I ask is that you live with us as our guest, and let us set you up a workshop. And one thing more – do not forget that it was I who woke your senses, in your boyhood, and let them lead you forth into the world. You may be either a good man or a worthless, and I, after you, shall have to answer for it. I shall see what you are in truth, since you will show it me in words, by your life, and in images. If I find that our house is not for you, I shall be the first to ask you to leave us.'

Each time that Narziss said such things as this they filled his friend with admiration. When he spoke thus, as an abbot, with this quiet certainty in his voice, his hint of mockery of worldlings and their life, Goldmund could perceive what his friend had made of himself. Here was a man – a churchman, truly, with delicate, white hands and the face of a cleric, but a man full of courage and resolution, a ruler, who answered for all. This man, Narziss, was no longer the young scholar he had known, no longer St John, the gentle, tender disciple. He must carve another statue of this new friend; this knight and leader demanded his hands to fashion him. How many shapes were awaiting him! Narziss, Abbot Daniel, Pater Anselm, Master Nicholas, Rebecca, the gentle Agnes, so many he had hated or loved, living and dead. No, he did not want to be a monk. He wanted to carve, and yet it made him happy to think that his first home should be his workshop.

They rode through the cool, late autumn weather, till at last, on a day whose morning branches hung, white with rime, over the roads, they came out onto rippling moorland, with wide domains of russet heath around them, where the lines of the long, far hills looked oddly familiar, yet seemed to hold a kind of threat; on, along the skirts of a high oak-copse, by and running stream, and past a barn the sight of which made Goldmund's heart leap. Now, with joy and sorrow, he knew again those very hills on which he had ridden with Lydia, saw the heath over which he had trudged off, outcast and sad, through the thin snowflakes. Then came the alder-brake, the mill, the castle, and so, with aching delight, he saw the very window of the room in which, in his fabulous youth, long ago, he had heard the knight tell tales of pilgrimage, and helped fill up the gaps in his master's Latin. They rode on into the yard, since this was one of the stages of their journey. Goldmund begged the abbot not to name him here, but let him sup with the churls, at the lower table. So it was done. There was no knight now, and no Lydia. A few old servants and huntsmen still remained, and in the house, there ruled and lived with her husband, a very beautiful, scornful mistress – Julia, sitting beside her lord at the high table. She was still as lovely as he remembered her, radiant, and a little malicious. Neither she nor her knight knew Goldmund.

After supper, through the evening dusk, he stole outside into the garden, peeped over the hedge at already withered flowerbeds, crept to the stable door, and peered through the chink at the horses. He slept with the grooms in their straw. Such a load of memories lay upon him that many times his sleep was troubled by it. How scattered and unfruitful had been his life, rich in the colour of its images, yet shivered into so many fragments; so poor in worth, so poor in love. As they rode off again next morning he looked up uneasily at the windows, since perhaps he might see Julia at one of them. Thus, only a short while since, in the courtyard of the bishop's palace, he had kept looking back over his shoulder, to make certain that Agnes had not shown herself. But she had not come, and neither did Julia come again! That had been his life, he thought, leave-taking, running away, being forgotten, being alone again with empty hands, and an icy heart. All day the thought of it poisoned him; he could not speak, but sat there, frowning in the saddle. Narziss left him to his mood.

Yet now, at last, they were near home and, a few days later, they had reached it. A little while before the cloister towers and roofs came into sight they rode over the same stony fallow-land where – how many ages ago – he had gone out plucking herbs for Pater Anselm; past the field where the gipsy, Lisa, had made a lover of him. They rode through the gates, and dismounted under the chestnut tree in the court. Goldmund gentle stroked its trunk. He bent to pick up a split and prickly husk, which lay on the earth, brown and withering.