During the first days of his new wandering life, in the first greedy whirl ained freedom, Goldmund had to relearn to live the homeless, timeless life of the traveler. Obedient to no man, depe only oher and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave, shabby existehey are the sons of Adam, who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of innoce. Out of heavens hand they accept what is given them from moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, fort, and hardship; time does for them aher does history, or ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which houseowners believe so desperately. A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly—he is always a child at heart, living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs. He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of ic space, or he may merely follow the ands of his poor stomach with childlike greed—he is always the oppo, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be remihat all existence is transitory, that life is stantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the os all around.
The childlike life of the wanderer, its mother-in, its turning away from law and mind, its openness and sta intimacy with death had long since deeply impregnated and molded Goldmunds soul. But mind and will lived within him heless; he was an artist, and this made his life rid difficult. Any life expands and flowers only through division and tradi. What are reason and sobriety without the knowledge of intoxication? What is sensuality without death standing behind it? What is love without the eternal mortal enmity of the sexes?
Summer sank away, and autumn; painfully Goldmund struggled through the bitter months, wandered drunkenly through the sweet-smelling spring. Hastily the seasons fled; again and again high summer sun sank down. Years passed. Goldmund seemed to have fotten that there were other things oh besides hunger and love, and this silent, eerie onrush of the seasons; he seemed pletely drowned iherly, instinctive basic world. But in his dreams or his thought-filled moments of rest, overlooking a fl or wilting valley, he was all eyes, an artist. He longed desperately to halt the gracefully drifting nonsense of life with his mind and transform it into sense.
One day he found a panion. After his bloody adveh Viktor he raveled any way but by himself, yet this man surreptitiously attached himself to him and he could not get rid of him for quite some time. This man was not like Viktor. He ilgrim who had been to Rome, a still young man, wearing pilgrims cloak and hat. His name was Robert and his home was on Lake stance. Robert was the son of an artisan. For a time he had attehe school of the St. Gallus monks, and while still a boy had made up his mind to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. It was his favorite ambition and he seized the first opportunity to carry it out. This opportunity preseself with the death of his father, in whose shop he had worked as a etmaker. The old man was hardly uhe gro