Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online Page B

give in to the temptation to say more than he had intended; he let himself be carried away by his own words.
    â€œLook,” he said, “I am superior to you only in one point: I’m awake, whereas you are only half awake, or completely asleep sometimes. I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force, drives, and weaknesses and knows how to deal with them. For you to learn that about yourself is the potential reason for your having met me. In your case, mind and nature, consciousness and dream world lie very far apart. You’ve forgotten your childhood; it cries for you from the depths of your soul. It will make you suffer until you heed it.
    â€œBut enough of that! Being awake, as I’ve already said, makes me stronger than you. This is the one point in which I am superior to you, and that is why I can be useful to you. In every other respect you are superior to me, my dear Goldmund—or rather, you will be, as soon as you’ve found yourself.”
    Goldmund had listened with astonishment, but at the words “you’ve forgotten your childhood” he flinched as though pierced by an arrow. Narcissus didn’t notice; he often kept his eyes closed for long moments while he spoke, or he’d stare straight ahead, as though this helped him to find his words. He did not see Goldmund’s face twitch suddenly.
    â€œI … superior to you!” stammered Goldmund, feeling as though his whole body had been lamed.
    â€œWhy, yes,” Narcissus continued. “Natures of your kind, with strong, delicate senses, the soul-oriented, the dreamers, poets, lovers are almost always superior to us creatures of the mind. You take your being from your mothers. You live fully; you were endowed with the strength of love, the ability to feel. Whereas we creatures of reason, we don’t live fully; we live in an arid land, even though we often seem to guide and rule you. Yours is the plenitude of life, the sap of the fruit, the garden of passion, the beautiful landscape of art. Your home is the earth; ours is the world of ideas. You are in danger of drowning in the world of the senses; ours is the danger of suffocating in an airless void. You are an artist; I am a thinker. You sleep at the mother’s breast; I wake in the desert. For me the sun shines; for you the moon and the stars. Your dreams are of girls; mine of boys…”
    Goldmund listened, wide-eyed. Narcissus spoke with a kind of rhetorical self-intoxication. Several words struck Goldmund like swords. Toward the end he grew pale and closed his eyes, and when Narcissus became aware of it and asked with sudden fear what was wrong, the deathly pale boy said: “Once I broke down in front of you and burst into tears—you remember. That must not happen again. I’d never forgive myself—or you! Please go away at once and let me be alone. You’ve said terrible words to me.”
    Narcissus was overcome. His words had carried him away; he had felt that he was speaking better than usual. Now he saw with consternation that some of his words had deeply affected his friend and somehow pierced him to the quick. He found it hard to leave him at that moment and hesitated a second or two, but Goldmund’s frown left him no choice. Confused, he ran off to allow his friend the solitude he needed.
    This time the extreme tension in Goldmund’s soul did not dissolve itself in tears. He was still, feeling deeply, desperately wounded, as though his friend had plunged a knife into his breast. He breathed heavily, with mortally contracted heart, a wax-pale face, limp hands. This was the old pain, only considerably sharper, the same inner choking, the feeling that something frightful had to be looked in the eye, something unbearable. But this time there was no relief of tears to overcome the pain. Holy Mother of God, what then could this be? Had something happened? Had he been murdered? Had