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GoIdmund spent a day of happy impatiening in the hills. If he had owned a horse, he would have ridden to his masters beautiful madonna in the cloister. He felt the urge to see her again and thought that he had dreamed of Master Niklaus that night. Well, hed go see the madonna aime. His bliss with Agnes might be of short duration, might lead to danger perhaps—but today it was in full bloom; he did not want to miss any of it. He did not want to see people, to be distracted; he wao spend the mild autumn day outside, with the trees and clouds. He told Marie that he was thinking of a hike in the tryside and might be back late. He asked her to give him a good k of bread for the road and not wait up for him in the evening. She made no ent, stuffed his pockets full of bread and appl<bdo>?99ｌib.</bdo>es, ran a brush over his old coat, which she had patched the very first day, a him go.He strolled across the river and climbed the steep-stepped paths through the empty vineyards, lost himself in the forest on the heights, and did not stop climbing until he had reached the last plateau. There the sun shone halfheartedly through bald trees. Blackbirds scurried before his steps; shyly they retreated into the bushes, looking at him with shiny black eyes. Far below, the river seemed a blue curve. The city looked like a toy; not a sound rose from it, except that of the bells ringing for prayers. Near him on the plateau there were small, grass-covered swellings, mounds from a pagan days, perhaps fortifications, perhaps tombs. He sat down in the dry, crag autumn grass on the side of one of them. He could see the whole vast valley, the hills and mountains beyond the river, upon , all the way to the horizon, where mountains and sky merged in bluish uainty and could no longer be told apart. His feet had measured this sweeping distance much farther than the eye could see. All these regions, which were far away now and remembered, had once been close and present. A huimes he had slept in those forests, eaten berries, been hungry and cold, crossed those mountain ridges, and stretches of heath, been happy or sad, fresh or fatigued. Somewhere in that distance, far out of the range of vision, lay the charred bones of good Lene; somewhere there his panion Robert might still be wandering, if the plague had not caught up with him; somewhere out there lay dead Viktor; and somewhere too, far off in the ented distance, was the cloister of his youth and the castle of the knight with the beautiful daughters, and poor, destitute, hounded Rebekka was still roaming there if she had not perished. So many widely scattered places, heaths and forests, towns and villages, castles and cloisters, and people alive and dead existed inside him in his memory, his love, his repentance, his longing. And if death caught him too, tomorrow, then all this would fall apart, would vanish, the whole picture book full of women and love, of summer ms and winter nights. Oh, it was high time that he aplished something, created something, left something behind that would survive him.
Up to now little remained of his life, of his wanderings, of all those years that had passed since he set out in the world. What remained were the few figures he had once made in the workshop, especially his St. John, and this picture book, this unreal world inside his head, this beautiful, ag image world of memories. Would he succeed in saving a few scraps of this inner world and making it visible to others? Or would things just go on the same way: owns, new landscapes, new women, new experiences, new images, piled one oher, experiences from which he gleaned nothing but a restless, torturous as well as beautiful overflowing of the heart?
It was shameless how life made fun of o was a joke, a cause for weepiher one lived a ones senses play, drank full at the primitive mothers breast—which brought great bliss but was no prote against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else o up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a moo the fleeting passage of life—then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that whidured, but one dried up in the process and lost ones freedom, scope, lust for life. Thats what had happeo Master Niklaus.
Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrifig ones senses for it. To live, without renoung the nobility of creating. Was that impossible?
Perhaps there were people for whom this ossible. Perhaps there were husbands and heads of families who did not lose their sensuality by being faithful. Perhaps there were people who, though settled, did not have hearts dried up by lack of freedom and lack of risk. Perhaps. He had never met one.
All existence seemed to be based on duality, on trast. Either one was a man or one was a womaher a wanderer or a sedentary burgher, either a thinking person or a feeling person—no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out, be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order, bine instind mind. One always had to pay for the oh the loss of the other, and ohing was always just as important and desirable as the other. Perhaps women had it easier in this respeature had created them in such a way that desire bore its fruit automatically, that the bliss of love became a child. For a maernal longing replaced this simple fertility. Was the god who had created everything in this manner an evil god, was he hostile, did he laugh ironically at his owion? No, he could not be evil; he had created the hart and the roebuck, fish and birds, forests, flowers, the seasons. But the split ran through his entire creation. Perhaps it had not turned ht or was inplete—or did God ihis lack, this longing in human life for a special purpose? Was this perhaps the seed of the enemy, inal sin? But why should this longing and this lack be sinful? Did not all that was beautiful and holy, all that maed and gave back to God as a sacrifice of thanks spring from this very lack, from this longing?
His thoughts depressed him. He turned his eyes toward the city, saw the marketplace, the fish market, the bridges, the churches, the town hall. And there was the castle, the proud bishops palace, in which t Heinrich was now ruling. Agnes lived uhose towers and high roofs, his beautiful regal mistress, who looked so proud but who could heless lose herself, abandon herself pletely in love. He thought of her with joy, and gratefully remembered last night. To have been able to experiehe happiness of that night, to have been able to make that marvelous woman happy, he had needed his entire life, all the things women had taught him, his many journeys, his needs, wandering through the snow at night, his friendship and familiarity with animals, flowers, trees, water, fish, butterflies. For this he had needed senses sharpened by ecstasy and danger, homelessness, all his inner world of images stored up during those many years. As long as his life was a garden in which such magic flowers as Agnes bloomed, he had no reason to plain.
He spent all day oumnal heights, walking, restiing bread, thinking of Agnes and the evening before him. Toward nightfall he was ba the city walking toward<u></u> the castle. It had grown chilly; the houses stared out of quiet red window eyes; he met a small troop of singing boys carrying hollowed-out turnips with faces carved into them and dles ihis little mummery left a st of winter in its wake, and smiling, Goldmund looked after them. For a long time he strolled about outside the castle. The church dignitaries were still there; here and there he could see a priest silhouetted in one of the windows. Finally he was able to creep inside and fia, the chambermaid. Again she hid him itle closet room until Agnes appeared and silently led him to her room. Tenderly her beautiful face received him, tenderly, but not happily; she was sad, worried, frightened. He had to try very hard to cheer her a little. Slowly his loving words and kisses restored a little of her fidence.
"How very sweet you be," she said gratefully. "You have such deep sounds in your throat, my golden bird, when youre tender and chirp. Im so fond of you, Goldmund. If only we were far from here! I no longer like it here. It will soon e to an end anyhow; the t has been called away; the silly bishop will soourn. The t is angry today. The priests have had harsh words with him. Oh, my dear, he must not set eyes on you! You wouldnt live through the hour. Im so afraid for you."
Half-lost sounds rose in his memory—hadnt he heard this song before? That was how Lydia used to speak to him, so lovingly and full of fear, so tender-sad. Thats how she used to e to his room at night, full of love and fear, full of worry, of gruesome images. He liked to hear it, that tender-anguished song. What would love be without secrecy? What would love be without risk?
Gently he drew Ago him, caressed her, held her hand, hummed low wooing sounds into her ear, kissed her eyebrows. It touched and delighted him to find her shtened and worried because of him. Gratefully she received his caresses, almost humbly. Full of love, she g to him, but her mood did nhten.
Suddenly she started as a nearby door was slammed and rapid steps approached.
"Oh, my God, the t!" she cried in despair. "Quickly, you escape through the closet room. Hurry! Doray me!"
She pushed him into the closet room. He stood alone gropiantly in the darkness. Behind the door he heard the t speak loudly to Agnes. He felt his way through the dresses to the other door; soundlessly he set one foot before the other. He reached the door to the corridor and tried to open it. And only at that moment, when he found the door locked from the outside, did he feel fear, did his heart beat wildly, painfully. It could be an unfortunate ce that someone had locked the door after he came in, but he did not believe so. He had walked into a trap; he was lost. Someone must have seen him sneak in here. It would cost him his life. Trembling, he stood in the darkness, and immediately thought of Agness last words: "Doray me!" No, he would not betray her. His heart pounded, but the decision steadied him. Angrily he ched his teeth.
It all happened in seds. A door opened and the t came in from Agness room, a dlesti his left hand and an uhed sword in his right. At the same moment, Goldmund hastily scooped up a few dresses and coats that were hanging all around him and placed them over his arm. Let them take him for a thief—perhaps that was a way out.
The t saw him at once. Slowly he came closer.
"Who are you? What are you doing here? Answer, or Ill run this sword through you."
"Five me," whispered Goldmund. "Im a poor man and you are so rich! Ill give it all back, my lord, everything I took. Here, see!"
A the coats on the floor.
"A thief, eh? It was not intelligent of you to risk your life for a few old coats. Are you a burgher of the city?"
"No, my lord, Im homeless. Im a poor man, youll have mercy …"
"Silence! I want to know if perce you were brazen enough to molest the lady. Ach, but since youll be hanged anyhoont have to pry into that. Theft is enough."
Violently he hammered against the locked door and called: "Are you there? Open up!"
The door opened from the outside, and three footmen stood in readiness with drawn blades.
"Tie him well," called the t in a voice that croaked with irony and pride. "Hes a vagrant who came io steal. Put him in the dungeon, and tomorrow m the rascal will dangle from the gallows."
Goldmunds hands were tied; he put up ance.藏书网 He was led off, through the long corridor, dowairs, through the inner courtyard, a butler carrying a torch ahead of them. They stopped in front of a round, iron-studded cellar door, shouted and cursed because the key was not in the lock. One of the footmen took the torch while the butler ran back to fetch the key. There they stood, three armed men and one bound one, waiting outside the door. The oh the light pushed it curiously on to Goldmunds face. At this moment two of the priests whuests in the castle walked by on the way from the castle chapel. They stopped in front of the group; both looked at the night se attentively: the three footmen, the bound man, the way they stood there, waiting.
Goldmund notieither the priests nor his guards. He could see nothing but the low, flickering light held close to his face. It was blinding his eyes. And behind the light, in a twilight full of horror, he saw something else, something formless, large, ghostlike: the abyss, the end, death. With staring eyes he stood there, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. One of the priests was whispering ily to one of the men. When he heard that the man was a thief and o death, he asked if he had a fessor. No, they said, he had just been caught i.
"Then I shall go to him in the m," said the priest. "Before early mass Ill bring him the holy sacraments and hear his fession. You will swear to me that he will not be led away before. Ill speak to the t this very evening. The man may be a thief; he still has the right to fession and the sacraments like any other Christian."
The men dared not tradict. They khe clerical dignitary. He was one of the envoys; they had seen him several times at the ts table. And besides, why should the prant be deprived of fession?
The priests walked off. Goldmund stared. Finally the butler came with the key and unlocked the door. The prisoner was led into a cellar, and stumbled down a few steps. A couple of three-legged stools were set around a table; it was the anteroom of a wine cellar. They pushed a stool toward him and told him to sit down.
"Tomorroriest is ing to fess you," one of the men said. Then they left and carefully locked the heavy door.
"Leave me the light, brother," begged Goldmund.
"No, fellow, you might do mischief with it. Youll get along without it. The wisest would be to get used to the dark. How long does such a light last anyway? It would be out within an hood night."
Now he was alone in the blaess. He sat oool and laid his head oable. It ainful to sit this way; the rope around his wrists hurt; but these feelings peed his sciousness only much later. At first he merely sat, with his head oable as though he were about to be decapitated. He felt the urge to impress upon his body and senses what had been imposed upon his heart: to accept the iable, to accept dying.
For ay he sat that way, miserably bent over, trying to accept what had been imposed upon him, to realize it, to breathe it in, and fill himself with it. It was evening now. Night was beginning, and the end of this night would also be the end of him. That was what he had to realize. Tomorrow he would no longer be alive. He would be hanging, an object for birds to sit on and pick at. He would be what Master Niklaus was, what Lene was in the burned-out hut, like all those he had seen piled high on the death-carts. It was not easy to accept that, to let himself be filled with it. It was absolutely impossible to accept it. There were too many things he had not yet given up, to which he had not yet said goodbye. The hours of this night had been given him to do just that.
He had to say farewell to beautiful Agnes. Never again would he see her tall figure, her light sunny hair, her cool blue eyes, the diminishing quiver of pride in these eyes, the soft gold down on her sweet-smelling skin. Farewell, blue eyes, farewell lovely mouth! He had hoped to kiss it many times more. Oh, only this m in the hills, ie autumn sun, he had thought of her, beloo her, longed for her! And he also had to say farewell to the hills, to the sun, the blue and white-clouded sky, the trees and forests, to wandering, the times of day, the seasons. Perhaps Marie was still sitting up, even now: poor Marie with the good loving eyes and hobbled gait, sitting and waiting, falling asleep in her kit and waking up again, but no Goldmund would ever e home.
Oh, and his paper and drawing pen, and all the figures he had wao make—gone, gone! And the hope of seeing Narcissus again, his dear St. John, that too had to be given up.
And he had to say farewell to his hands, his eyes, to hunger and thirst, to love, to playing the lute, to sleeping and waking, to everything. Tomorrow a bird would fly through the air and Goldmund would no longer see it, a girl would sing in a window and he would not hear her song, the river would run and the dark fish would swim silently, the wind would blow and sweep the yellow leaves on the ground, the sun would shine and stars would blink in the sky, young men would go dang, the first snow would lie on the distant mountains—everything would go on, trees would cast their shadows, people would look gay or sad out of their living eyes, dogs would bark, cows would low in the barns of villages, and all of it without Goldmund. Nothing beloo him any more, he was being dispatched from it all.
He smelled the m smell of the heath; he tasted the sweet young wihe young firm walnuts; his memory spun a glowing panorama of the entire colorful world through his oppressed heart. In parting, all of lifes beautiful fusion shone once more through his senses; grief welled up in him and he felt tear upon tear drop from his eyes. Sobbing, he gave in to the wave. His tears flooded out; collapsing, he abandoned himself to the infinite pain. Oh, valleys and wooded mountains, brooks among green elms, oh girls, oh moonlit evenings on the bridges, oh beautiful radiant image world, how I leave you! Weeping, he lay across the table, a dissolate boy. From the misery of his heart, a sigh, an impl plaint rose: "Oh mother, oh mother!"
And as he spoke this magic word, an image answered him from the depths of his memory, the image of his mother. It was not the figure of his thoughts and artists dreams. It was the image of his own mother, beautiful and alive, the way he had not seen it since his cloister days. To her he addressed his prayer, to her he cried his unbearable sorrow at having to die, to her he abandoned himself, to her he gave the forest, the sun, his eyes and hands; he placed his whole life and being in her motherly hands.
And so weeping he fell asleep; exhaustion and sleep held him in their arms like a mother. He slept an hour or two, esg his misery.
He woke up a violent pain. His bound wrists burned horribly; a jagged pain shot through ned back. He had trouble sitting up; then he came to and realized where he was again. Around him the darkness was plete. He did not know how long he had slept, how many hours he still had to live. Perhaps theyd e any moment to take him away to die. Then he remembered that he had been promised a priest. He didnt think that the sacraments would do him much good. He didnt know whether even plete absolution of his sins could bring him to heaven. He didnt know if there was a heaven, a God the father, a judgment, ay. He had long since lost all certitude about those things.
But whether there was ay or not: he did not desire it, he wanted nothing but his insecure, transitory life, this breathing, this being at home in his skin, he wao live. Furiously he sat up, groped his way to the wall in the dark, and began to think. There had to be an escape! Perhaps the priest was the answer. Perhaps he could vince him of his innoce, get him to say a good word on his behalf or help him secure a stay of execution or make his escape? He went over these ideas again and again. If they didnt work he could not give up; the game just couldnt be over yet. First he would try to wihe priest. He would try as hard as he could to charm him, to enlist him in his cause, to vince him, to flatter him. The priest was the one good card in his hand; all the other possibilities were dreams. Still, there were d destiny: the hangman might have a stomach-ache, the gallows might collapse, some unforeseeable possibility of escape might arise. In any case Goldmund refused to die; he had vainly tried to accept his fate, and he could not. He would resist, he would struggle, hed trip the guard, hed attack the hangman, he would fight for his life to the last moment, with every drop of blood in him. Oh, if he could only persuade the priest to untie his hands! A great deal would be gained.
In the meantime he tried, in spite of the pain, to work at the ropes with his teeth. With furious effort he succeeded, after a cruelly long time, in making them seem a little looser. Panting, he stood in the night of his prison, his swollen arms and hands hurting terribly. When he had gotten his breath again, he crept along the wall, step by step, expl the humid cellar wall for a protruding edge. Then he remembered the steps over which he had stumbled down into this dungeon. He found them. He k and tried to rub the rope against the edge of one of the stones. It was difficult. Again and again his wrists instead of the rope hit the stohey burned like fire and he felt his blood flow. But he did not give up. When a miserable strip of gray m was visible between the door and the sill, he had succeeded. The rope had been rubbed through; he could u; his hands were free! But afterwards he could hardly move a finger. His hands were swollen and lifeless, and his arms were stiff with cramps all the to the shoulders. He had to exercise them. He forced himself to move them, to make the blood stream through them again. Now he had a plan that seemed good to him.
If he could not succeed in persuading the priest to help him, well then, if they left the man aloh him even for the shortest time, he had to kill him. He could do it with one of the stools. He could not strangle him, he no longer had enough strength in his hands and arms. First beat the priest to death, quickly slip into his robes and flee! Whehers found the dead man, hed have to be outside the castle, and then run, run. Marie would let him in and hide him. The plan would work.
Never in his life had Goldmund watched the grayish beginning of m with such attention, longed for it a feared it. Quivering with tension aerminatioched the miserable strip of light uhe drowing slowly lighter. He walked back to the table and practiced croug oool with his hands between his
knees so that the missing ropes would not be noticed immediately. Since his hands had been freed, he no longer believed in his death. He was determio get through, even if the whole world had to be smashed in the process. He was determio live at any cost. His nose quivered with eagerness for freedom and life. And who could tell, perhaps someone oside would e to his aid? Agnes was a woman. Her power did not reach very far, nor perhaps did her ce; and it ossible that she would abandon him. But she loved him; perhaps she could do something for him. Perhaps her chambermaid Berta was h outside the door—and wasnt there also a groom she thought she could trust? And if nobody appeared and no sign was given him, well, then hed gh with his plan. If it did not succeed, hed kill the guards with the stool, two or three of them, as many as came in. He was certain of one advantage: his eyes had grown aced to the dark cellar. He nnized instinctively all the shapes and shadows iwilight, whereas the others would be pletely blind for the first few mi least.
Feverishly he crouched at the table, thinking carefully what he would say to the priest to win his assistance, because thats how he had to begin. At the same time he eagerly watched the modest swelling of light in the slit. Now he longed desperately for the moment he had so dreaded ho. He could hardly wait; the terrible tension would not be bearable much longer. His strength, his vigilance, his power of decision would gradually diminish. The guard had to e soon with the priest, while his taut readiness, his determined will to be saved was still in the blossoming stage.
Finally the world outside awakehe enemy approached. Steps resounded on the pavement in the court, a key ushed into the lod turned: each sound boomed out like thunder after the lohly silence.
Slowly the heavy door opened a slit, creaking on its hinges. A priest came in, alone, without a guard, carrying a dlestick with two dles. This was not at all what the prisoner had imagined.
How strangely moving: the priest who had entered, behind whom invisible hands pulled the door shut, wore the habit of Mariabronn, the well-known, familiar habit that Abbot Daniel, Father Anselm, and Father Martin had once worn!
The sight stabbed at his heart; he had to look aerhaps the habit of this cloister was the promise of something friendly, a good omen. But then again perhaps murder was still the only way out. He ched his teeth. It would be hard for him to kill this friar.
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