CHAPTER TWENTY

THE summer ended; poppies and cornflowers, corncampion and starwort, withered and vanished, the frogs in the fishponds ceased to croak, the storks flew high, preparing to depart. Then Goldmund came.

It scared Erich to see him. True that at the first glance he knew him, and his heart leapt for joy at the sight. Yet it seemed another man who had come back, older by many years, a counterfeit Goldmund, ailing and spent, with a dusty, greyish, sagging face, although there was no pain in his eyes, but rather a smile, an old, good-natured, patient smile. He dragged his steps, and seemed exhausted.

This strange, half-recognizable Goldmund took the young journeyman's hand, and peered into his eyes. He made no great matter of his return, behaving as though he were come from the next room. He held Erich's hand, but would say nothing, no greetings, no questions, no traveller's tales. He only said: 'I must sleep,' and seemed too weary, almost, to move. He sent Erich away, and went into his bedroom, next the workshop. There he pulled off his cap, and flung it down, kicked off his shoes, and lay on the bed. In the far, dark corner of the room he could see his madonna, wound in cere cloths. He gave her a nod but did not go to lift her wrappings, or greet her. Instead he crept to the little window, outside which still stood the uneasy Erich, and called:

'Erich, don't tell anyone I'm back. I'm very tired. There's time till morning.'

He stretched himself out without undressing. Soon, having found no sleep, he stood up again, and shuffled heavily to the wall, to peer into the little looking-glass that hung there. He stared very closely at the Goldmund who answered his gaze from the mirror's round, a tired, withered, old man, with vivid white streaks in his beard. It was a rather unkempt old fellow who stared back at him from the small dim circle, with a face not his, although he knew it, a stranger's face, and one he could not feel to be really there, since it seemed to have so little to do with him. It reminded him of many other faces; a little of Master Nicholas, a little of that old knight in the castle who had dressed him once as a brown page, a little of St James in the church – old, bearded St James, who looked so very ancient and grey in the shadow of his wide pilgrim's hat, and yet a pleasant old man, with a good heart.

He read his face very carefully, as though eager to learn all he could of this queer old fellow. Then he nodded, and knew it again as Goldmund. Yes, it was he; it tallied with his feeling of himself. A very weary and rather dull old man, back from a long journey, a quiet greybeard, and, though not much could ever be made of him, he bore him no grudge, he found him easy to live with. This ancient had something in his face which the other handsome Goldmund had lacked. For all the exhaustion in these eyes there was a look in them of content – or of indifferent. He chuckled gently, and watched the dim figure chuckle back. This was a fine old fellow to bring back home with him! His jaunt had left him spent and tattered indeed, with no horse now, and no travelling wallet, and no gold thalers in his purse. And, more than these, he had left his strength and youth, his trust in himself, the red in his cheeks, the light in his eyes. Nevertheless the image pleased him: this old weak fellow in the looking-glass was a better companion than the Goldmund he had lived with so long. He was feeble, pitiful; but more harmless far, and more content. It would be easier to have a quiet life with him. He laughed and blinked with one of his wrinkled lids. Then he lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.

Next day Narziss came to visit him as he sat, trying to draw a little, bent far down over the workshop table. The abbot stopped in the doorway:

'Thank God!' he cried. 'They have only just told me you were back. I am overjoyed. Since you did not ask for me I have come to you. Do I hinder your work?'

He came closer, Goldmund sat up from his drawing, and held out his hand. Though Erich had warned him in advance, Narziss' heart stood still at the sight of his friend. Goldmund smiled up at him:

'Greetings, Narziss. It's a while now since we had a sight of each other. Forgive me for not having come over to you.'

Narziss looked him in the eyes. He too saw deeper than the spent, pitiful weariness in the face, saw that strangely tranquil look of contentment beneath – an old man's pitiful resignation. Expert in his reading of human faces, he knew at once that this broken, strange-looking Goldmund was indeed no longer his friend, come back to greet him – that either his soul had detached itself from reality and wandered along some far-off road of dreams, or already stood at the gate which leads out of life.

'Are you sick?' he asked him tenderly.

'Oh yes. I am sick, too. I sickened in the first days of my travels. But I didn't want to have you laugh at me, and so you see I couldn't turn back. You'd have laughed to see me again so soon, quietly pulling off my riding-boots. No – I couldn't do that. So on I went, and travelled a while here and there. I was ashamed to think my journey had gone so ill. I'd reckoned without my host, and so, you see, I felt a fool. Ah well, you're wise, you can understand. Oh, forgive me – what was it you asked? I might be bewitched, for I keep forgetting everything they say to me. That business with my mother, Narziss! – you did that very well, you know. It hurt me badly at the time, but – '

His mutterings ended in a smile.

'We'll care for you, Goldmund, you shall have everything. But, oh – why didn't you come back as soon as things began to go ill with you? Truly we would never have shamed you. You should have turned you horse.'

Goldmund laughed:

'Oh, yes – now I know what it was! I didn't trust myself simply to come back here. It would have put me to shame. But now I've come. I'm well again now.'

'Have you had great pain?'

'Pain? Oh yes, I have enough pain. But listen – my pain is a good one. It's brought me to reason, and I'm not ashamed any more – even with you. That time you came to the prison to save my neck … I have to set my teeth then, Narziss. I was so ashamed to have you see me there. All's one now.'

Narziss laid a hand on his arm. He was silent at once, and closed his eyes with a smile. The abbot, with fear in his heart, hurried away to summon the cloister-leech, Pater Anton, and have him examine the sick man. When they came back Goldmund sat asleep at his drawing-table. They put him to bed. The leech remained with him.

He found him hopelessly sick. He was shifted into one of the cloister wards. Erich became his keeper day and night.

No-one ever learned the whole story of Goldmund's last adventure on the roads. Some he related, and much he left to be guessed. Often, as he lay in a half-swoon, his fever rose and his mind wandered. At times he was clear in his speech, and then, each time, they would send for Narziss, who set great store by these last talks.

Some fragments of Goldmund's story and his thoughts were set down by Narziss, others by Erich.

'When did my pains begin? That was near the beginning of my journey. I rode through a wood, and the nag stumbled and threw me, so that I fell in a stream, and lay the whole night long in cold water. Inside here, where my ribs broke, I've been feeling the pain ever since. And I wasn't so far from here when it happened, so I couldn't let it turn me back. I was like a silly child, that fears to look foolish. So on I rode, and then, when I couldn't ride because of the pain, I sold my pony, and lay a long while in a hospice. Now I'm back for good, Narziss: it's all over with riding. It's all over with wandering the roads, all over with dancing and women. Oh, if it weren't, I'd have stayed away a good while longer, years longer. But when I saw that, out there, there was no more pleasure for me, I thought: “Before I have to go underground I'll draw a little, and carve a couple of figures.” A man must have some kind of pleasure.'

Then Narziss answered him:

'It rejoices me to have you back with me. I lacked you so, and thought of you every day. And often I was afraid you'd never come back.'

Goldmund shook his head:

'Ah, well, you wouldn't have lost much.'

Narziss, a fire of love and grief in his heart, bent slowly down over his friend, and did what he had never done till now, in all the years of their long friendship: he kissed Goldmund's forehead, and his hair. Amazed at first, and then enthralled, Goldmund took count of what he had done.

'Goldmund,' the abbot whispered, 'forgive me that I could never say it before. I ought to have said it that day in the Bishop's city, when I came to free you from prison; or here, when you showed me your first statue, or at any other time when I might. Let me say it now, and tell you how dearly I love you, how much your life has always meant to me, how rich you have made me. It will mean very little to you. You are used to love, for you it is nothing out of the common, many women have cherished you in their arms. For me it is different. I have missed the best, and my life has been poor in love. Our Abbot Daniel told me that I was proud, and it seems he was right in what he said. Not that I am unjust with men. I strive very hard to be just and patient with them. But I have never loved them. Of two learned monks in the cloister, the one with the more learning was the dearer to me. I have never loved a bad scholar in spite of his weakness. Yet if now, with all this, I know what love means, that is your doing, Goldmund. You I have loved, and you alone, of all humanity. You can never fathom what that means to me. It has meant the fountain in the desert, the one flowering tree in the wilderness. I have you alone to thank that my heart has not dried up and perished, that something in me can still be touched by grace.'

Goldmund smiled, happily but uneasily. He said, in the low, quiet voice of his lucid hours:

'After you set me free, as we rode home together, I asked you for news of Bless, my pony, and you told me his fate. Then I saw how you, who scarcely knew of any other horse in the cloister, have been keeping your eye on my little Bless. I was very glad, since I understood that you did it for my sake. Now I see that I was really as I thought, and indeed I know that you love me. I have always loved you, Narziss. Half my life has been a striving to gain your love. I knew you had always cherished me, but I never hoped you would say it – you proud one! You say it now, when I have nothing left but you, no life or freedom in the world, and women have turned their backs on me. I accept your love, and I thank you for it.'

The Lydia madonna watched them from the corner of the room.

'Do you still think of death?' asked Narziss.

'Oh, yes, I think of death. And I think of how my life has shaped itself. When I was a boy, and you a scholar still, I wanted to be as wise a man as you are. You showed me how little I was fitted for it. Then I took the other side of life, and followed my senses, and women made it easy enough to find joy in it, they were all so willing, and greedy. But I don't want to seem to despise them, or speak any ill of lechery. I was very happy in the flesh, and I had the happiness of knowing that the flesh can sometimes be the spirit. That is how craftsmen are made. But now the flames are all put out; I have lost the joy of beasts, and the longing for it. Today I should still not have it, even if women longed for me again. Nor do I care to carve more figures. I have done enough. What difference does it make how many figures a craftsman leaves? So it is time to die. I am willing enough. I am even curious for it.'

'Why curious?' asked Narziss.

'Well, I suppose you think me a fool – and yet I'm curious to die. Not for eternal life, Narziss. I think very little of that, and. to put it plainly, I don't believe in it any more. There is no eternal life. A withered tree is dead for ever; a frozen bird can never stir its wings again. Why should a man be a better corpse? Folk may go on thinking for a while of him, but, once he's gone, that doesn't last so very long. No, I'm curious to die because it's still my belief, or my dream, that I'm on the way back to my mother; because I hope my death will be a great happiness – as great as I had of my first woman. I can never rid myself of the thought that, instead of Death with his sickle, it will be my mother who takes me into herself again, and leads me back into nothingness and innocence.'

At one of his last visits, when Goldmund had not spoken for several days, Narziss found him awake, and eager to talk.

'Pater Anton says you must be in very great pain. How do you manage to bear it so quietly, Goldmund? I think you have made your peace at last.'

'Peace with God, you mean? No, I have not found that. I want no peace with God. He made the world too ill, we need not esteem it, and He will not care much that I praise or blame Him. He bungled the world! But you're right when you say I have made peace with the pains in my ribs. Once I found it hard to bear pain, and although I used to think it easy to die, I was wrong. That night when dying seemed likely, in Count Heinrich's prison, I saw that. I couldn't die, and that was all about it! I was far too strong and wild to die then: they would have had to kill every limb in me twice over. All that's changed now.'

It wearied him to speak and his voice grew feebler. Narziss implored him to spare himself.

'No,' he said, 'I want you to hear me. Once I should have been ashamed to tell it you. You'll mock me even now – but listen. That day when I straddled my horse and left you, it was not for any adventure I happened to find. I had heard a rumour that Count Heinrich was back in these parts again, and his leman with him, Mistress Agnes. Well now, all that means nothing to you, and today nothing to me either. But when I heard it, it fired me so that I could think of nothing else but Agnes. She was the loveliest I'd ever lain with, and so I longed for another sight of her. I wanted to be happy with her again. So I rode, and in a week I found her. She was beautiful still, and I managed to speak to her, and show myself. But think, Narziss – she wouldn't look at me. I was too old, she said, I was not fair or young or lively enough for her. She promised herself no joy with me now. So then my journey was really over. Yet still I rode on. You see I couldn't come back to you to be shamed. But even then, as I rode, my strength, and youth and cunning must all have forsaken me, for I fell down a gully with my horse, into a stream, and broke my ribs, and I lay all night in the water. Those were the first sharp pains I had ever known. In the very instant after I tumbled I could feel something break in my chest, and yet the breaking seemed a pleasure to me. I was glad. I felt it with delight. And so I lay there in the water, and knew that I should have to die. I had nothing against it now. Death didn't seem so bad as it had in that prison. I felt those same sharp pains under my ribs that I've had so often ever since, and they brought me a dream, or a vision – just as you like. At first the pain seemed like a fire, and I lay there, shouting, and fighting it off, till suddenly I heard a voice, laughing at me – it was a voice I used to hear when I was a boy. It was my mother's voice, a soft, deep, woman's voice, full of love and lechery. It was then that I knew it was my mother. She was with me, holding me in her lap, and she had made a hole in my chest, and set her fingers deep between my ribs, to loosen my heart, and draw it out of me. When I knew that, it didn't seem like pain any more. Even now, when these pains come back, they are not pains – not enemies. They are my mother's fingers, drawing my heart out. She's very busy at it. Sometimes she presses down and moans, as though she were in an agony of love. Sometimes she laughs and croons over me. Often she is up in the sky, and I see her face between the clouds as wide as a cloud, hovering up there, and smiling sadly at me. Her sad smile draws at my heart, and plucks it.'

He spoke of her again and again.

'Do you know,' he asked, on one of the last days, 'how far I had forgotten my mother until you raised her up, and gave her back to me? Even that was a sharp pain. It was as though beasts' heads were gnawing my entrails. Then we were still young, Narziss – fine boys, both of us, in those days. But even then my mother had called me back. I had to follow. And she was everywhere. She was Lisa the gipsy, and the sorrowful madonna of Master Nicholas. She was life and wantonness, and fear and hunger, and love. Now she is death, and she has her fingers in my breast.'

'Don't say so much, my friend,' begged Narziss, 'wait till morning.'

Goldmund smiled up into his eyes, with the new smile he had brought home from his travels, the smile which seemed so frail and old, uncertain, at times, and feeble-witted, and then again pure goodness and pure wisdom.

'My dear,' he whispered, 'I can't wait till morning. I must take my leave, and tell you everything in my leave-taking. Hear me a few minutes longer. I wanted to tell you of my mother, and how she keeps her fingers round my heart. For years I longed to carve my mother's statue, it seemed the most splendid of my dreams. That would have been the best of all my works, since always I had her in my mind. In a shape full of love and secrecy. Even a short while ago I should have thought it unbearable to die without having carved my mother's image. My life would have seemed so useless. But now, see how well she contrives it. Instead of my hands moulding her shape, it is she who moulds me, and informs me. She has her fingers round my heart, and loosens it, and makes me empty. She has led me to death, and my dream dies with me – my statue of Eve, in wood, the Mother of all men. I can see it still, and would carve it, if I had any strength left in my hands. But she will not have it so. She will never have me disclose her secret. She will kill me rather. And yet I am glad to die, she makes it so easy for me.'

Narziss heard these last words in agony. To catch their sense he had to bend down close over Goldmund's face. Many he could only half hear; many he heard, and yet their meaning remained obscure to him. Now the sick man opened his eyes again. Their eyes took leave. He whispered, with a little gesture, as though he were striving to shake his head:

'But how will you ever die, Narziss? You know no mother. How can we love without a mother? Without a mother, we cannot die.'

The rest of what he muttered was unintelligible. For the two last days and nights beside his bed, Narziss watched the light die out of his face. Goldmund's last words still seared his heart like a flame.