Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online

while. Twice these approaches brought him, much against his intention, an invitation to “go to the village.” Then he’d become frightened and quickly draw back. No, he was not going to the village again, and he managed to forget the girl with the braids, never—or almost never—to think of her any more.

4
    N ARCISSUS’S long siege had not succeeded in bringing Goldmund’s secret out into the open. For a long time he had apparently labored in vain to awaken him, to teach him the language in which the secret could be told.
    Goldmund’s description of his home and childhood gave no clear picture. There was a shadowlike, faceless father whom he venerated, and then there was the legend of a mother who had vanished, or perished, long ago, who was nothing but a pallid name. Narcissus, the experienced reader of souls, had gradually come to recognize that Goldmund was one of those people part of whose lives have been lost; pressure of circumstances or some kind of magic power has obliterated a portion of their past. He realized that nothing would be gained by mere questioning and teaching, that he had overestimated the power of logic and spoken many useless words.
    But the love that bound him to his friend and their habit of spending much time together had not been fruitless. In spite of the vast differences of their characters, each had learned much from the other. Beside the language of reason, a language of the soul had gradually come into being between them; it was as if, branching off the main street, there are many small, almost secret lanes. Gradually the imaginative power of Goldmund’s soul had tracked such paths into Narcissus’s thoughts and expressions, making him understand—and sympathize with—many of Goldmund’s perceptions and feelings, without need for words. New links from soul to soul developed in the warm glow of love; words came later. That is how, one holiday, in the library, there occurred a conversation between the friends that neither had expected—a conversation that touched at the core and purpose of their friendship and cast new, far-reaching lights.
    They had been talking about astrology, a forbidden science that was not pursued in the cloister. Narcissus had said that astrology was an attempt to arrange and order the many different types of human beings according to their natures and destinies. At this point Goldmund had objected: “You’re forever talking of differences—I’ve finally recognized a pet theory of yours. When you speak of the great difference that is supposed to exist between you and me, for instance, it seems to me that this difference is nothing but your strange determination to establish differences.”
    Narcissus: “Yes. You’ve hit the nail on the head. That’s it: to you, differences are quite unimportant; to me, they are what matters most. I am a scholar by nature; science is my vocation. And science is, to quote your words, nothing but the ‘determination to establish differences.’ Its essence couldn’t be defined more accurately. For us, the men of science, nothing is as important as the establishment of differences; science is the art of differentiation. Discovering in every man that which distinguishes him from others is to know him.”
    Goldmund: “If you like. One man wears wooden shoes and is a peasant; another wears a crown and is a king. Those are differences, I grant you. But children can see them, too, without any science.”
    Narcissus: “But when peasant and king are dressed alike, the child can no longer tell one from the other.”
    Goldmund: “Neither can science.”
    Narcissus: “Perhaps it can. Not that science is more intelligent than the child, but it has more patience; it remembers more than just the most obvious characteristics.”
    Goldmund: “So does any intelligent child. He will recognize the king by the look in his eyes,