Narcissus and Goldmund

Herman Hesse

But how will you die when your time comes, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.

One thing, however, did become clear to him--why so many perfect works of art did not please him at all, why they were almost hateful and boring to him, in spite of a certain undeniable beauty. Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing--mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery.

Continue, said Narcissus. You promised; you must keep your promise. You are not to think about whether God hears your prayers or whether there is a God such as you imagine. Nor are you to wonder whether your exercises are childish. Compared to Him to whom all our prayers are addressed, all our doing is childish. You must forbid yourself these foolish child's thoughts completely during the exercises. You are to speak the Our Father and the canticles, and give yourself up to the words and fill yourself with them just the way you play the lute or sing. You don't pursue clever thoughts and speculations then, do you? No, you execute one finger position after another as purely and perfectly as possible. While you sing, you don't wonder whether or not singing is useful; you sing. That's how you are to pray.

You should not envy me, Goldmund. There is no peace of the sort you imagine. Oh, there is peace of course, but not anything that lives within us constantly and never leaves us. There is only the peace that must be won again and again, each new day of our lives. You don't see me fight, you don't know my struggles as Abbot, my struggles in the prayer cell. A good thing that you don't. You only see that I am less subject to moods than you, and you take that for peace. But my life is struggle; it is struggle and sacrifice like every decent life; like yours too.

Goldmund, the Abbot whispered into his ear, forgive me for not being able to tell you earlier. I should have said it to you the day I came to see you in your prison in the bishop's residence, or when I was shown your first statues, or at so many other times. Let me tell you today how much I love you, how much you have always meant to me, how rich you have made my life. It will not mean very much to you. You are used to love; it is not rare for you; so many women have loved and spoiled you. For me it is different. My life has been poor in love; I have lacked the best of life. Our Abbot Daniel once told me that he thought I was arrogant; he was probably right. I am not unjust toward people. I make efforts to be just and patient with them, but I have never loved them. Of two scholars in the cloister, I prefer the one who is more learned; I've never loved a weak scholar in spite of his weakness. If I know nevertheless what love is, it is because of you. I have been able to love you, you alone among all men. You cannot imagine what that means. It means a well in a desert, a blossoming tree in the wilderness. It is thanks to you alone that my heart has not dried up, that a place within me has remained open to grace.

I began this book and wondered just what the hell I was reading. It did not seem to be anything more than a young man wandering around the medieval German countryside seducing women. Yet, by the end I was convinced that Narcissus and Goldmund was a very holy book. Hesse scratches the soul of an artist into being in between the two poles of Narcissus and Goldmund.
We are given the difference between a man who thinks and a man who feels. But the reason Hesse paints this difference is to make us think about a different opposition: great art and small art. We all have created some thing of our one, once, and marveled at the little parts of it that hint at a greater artistic mystery, but usually these small creations of ours, for varied reasons, never latch into us with the fullness of Art. But most of us have also seen some true relic of great Art. We have read some story, seen some painting, heard some music which rings in us the moment it enters and never really leaves--this sort of art tunes us a little to it. And we recognize the vast difference, the impossible chasm between our little hints at this and the true specimen before us. This is what Narcissus and Goldmund will pull out of you. And once you begin to understand this, once it begins to become a part of you, Hesse gives you yet another mystery to contemplate--the last lines of the book which are the first lines I quoted above. I have a feeling that to understand, or perhaps to feel, these lines is to be an artist and not just to think about art. But I wouldn't know, because I don't understand them.