Up to now, the few things Goldmund knew of his mother had e from what others had told him. Her image had almost faded from his memory. Of the little he thought he knew of her, he had told Narcissus o nothing. Mother was a subject he was forbidden to mention—something to be ashamed of. She had been a dancer, a wild beautiful woman of hough poor, birth; Goldmunds father said that he had lifted her from poverty and shame; and since he couldnt be sure she was not a heathen, he had arrao have her baptized and instructed in religion; he had married her and made her respectable. But after a few years of domesticated and ordered existence, she had remembered her old tricks and crafts, had started to make trouble and seduce men, had strayed from home for days and weeks at a time, had acquired the reputation of a witch, and, after her husband had goo find her and taken her back to his house several times, she had finally disappeared forever. Her reputation had stayed alive, a wicked reputation that flickered like the tail of a et, until it had beeinguished. Slowly her husband recovered from the years of disorder, fear, and shame, of the never ending surprises she sprang on him. In place of the unredeemed wife, he educated his little son, who greatly resembled his mother iures and build; he grew nagging and bigoted, instilling in Goldmund the belief that he must offer up his life to God to expiate his mothers sins.
This was the tale Goldmunds father told of his lost wife, although he preferred not to speak of her. He had hi it to the Abbot the day he brought Goldmund to the cloister. It was all known to the son as a terrible legend, but he had learo push it aside and had almost fotten it. The real image of his mother had been pletely fotten and lost, an altogether different image that was not made of his fathers and the servants tales and dark wild rumors. He had fotten his own true living mother-memory. And now this image, the star of his earliest years, had risen again.
"I t uand how I could have fotten," he said to his friend. "Never in my life have I loved anyone as much as I loved my mother, unditionally, fervently. Never did I vee or admire anyone as I did her; she was sun and moon to me. God only knows how it ossible to darken this radiant image in my soul, to ge her gradually to the evil, pallid, shapeless witch she was to my father and to me for many years."
Narcissus had retly pleted his novitiate and had dohe habit. His attitude toldmund was strangely ged. Because Goldmund, who had often before rejected his friends hints and sel as cumbersome superiority ary, was now, since his deep experience, filled with astonished admiration of his friends wisdom. How many of his words had e true like prophecies, how deeply had this uny man seen inside him, how precisely had he guessed the secret of his life, his hidden wound, how deftly had he healed him!
At least Goldmund seemed to be healed. Not only had the fainting spell been without evil sequences, but all that was unformed and unauthenti Goldmunds character had somehow melted away, his mistaken vocation to monkhood, his belief that he was obliged to render particular service to God. The young man seemed to have grown younger and older all at once. He owed it all to Narcissus.
But Narcissus was now dug himself with a strange caution toward his friend. He looked upon him with great modesty, no longer in the least desding or instrug, while Goldmund admired him mo