Goldmund had been walking for quite some time; he rarely spent two nights in the same place. Everywhere women desired him and made him happy. He was dark from the sun and thin with walking and frugal meals. Many women said farewell in the early hours of the m, a him, some in tears. Occasionally he thought: "Why doesnt one of them stay with me? Why, if they love me and it adultery for the sake of a single night of love—why do they all run back to their husbands immediately afterwards, even though most of them are afraid of beien?" Not one had seriously begged him to stay, not one had asked him to take her along, had loved him enough to share the joys and hardships of his wandering life. Of course he had never asked that of them, had never even hi it to any of them, and, when he questioned his heart, he khat he cherished his freedom. He could not remember a single woman for whom he had not stopped longing in the arms of the . Still, it seemed a little odd and sad that love had to be so extremely short-lived wherever he went, his own love as well as that of the women, and that it was satiated as rapidly as it was kindled. Was that how it should be? Was that how it was always and everywhere? Or was it because of him: was he perhaps fashioned in such a way that women thought him desirable aiful but did not wish to be with him lohan the brief, wordless span in the hay or on the moss? Was it because he lived a wanderers life, because the settled have a terror of the homeless? Or was it solely because of something in himself, because of him as a person? Did women desire him as they desired a pretty doll, to hug to their hearts, only to run back to their husbands afterwards, in spite of the beatings that awaited them? He couldnt tell.
He did not grow tired of learning from women. Actually he felt more drawn to girls, to the very young, as yet without husbands, who knew nothing. With them he could fall in love longingly. But most young girls were out of reach; they were the cherished oimid and well protected. But he also enjoyed learning from the women. Every o him something, a gesture, a way of kissing, a particular play, her own special way of giving herself, of holding back. Goldmund gave in to everything; he was as insatiable and pliable as a child, open to every sedu: and only for that reason was he so seductive. His beauty alone would not have been enough to draw women to him so easily; it was his childlike openness, the inquisitive innoce of his desire, his absolute readiness for anything a woman might wish of him. Without knowing it, he was to eaan the lover she had wished for and dreamed of: delicate and patient with one, fast and greedy with another, a boy who experiences love for the first time, ain artful and knowing. He was ready to play, to wrestle, to sigh and laugh, to be chaste, to be shameless; he did nothing but what the woman desired, nothing that she did not prompt him to do. This was what any woman with intelligent senses soon perceived in him, and it made him their darling.
All the time he was learning. In a short time he learned many kinds of love, many arts of love, absorbed the experienany women. He also learo see women in their multiplicity, how to feel, to touch, to smell them. His ear grew sensitive to every tone of voice; with certain women a certain tone infallibly told him the type and scope of their amorous capacities. With unending delight he observed their infinite variety: how the head was faste