The summer passed. Poppies and flowers, cockles and starwort wilted and vahe frogs grew silent in the pond and the storks flew high and prepared for departure. Thats when Goldmuurned.
He arrived oernoon, during a light rain, and did not go into the cloister; from the portal he went immediately to his workshop. He had e on foot, without the horse.
Erich felt a shock when he saw him e in. Although he reized him at first glance, and his heart went out to greet him, the man who had e back seemed pletely different: a false Goldmund, many years older, with a half-spent, dusty, gray face, sunken cheeks, and sick, suffering eyes, although there was no pain in them, but a smile rather, a kied, old, patient smile. He walked painfully; he dragged himself, and he seemed to be ill aired.
This ged, hardly reizable Goldmund peered strangely at his assistant. He made no fuss about his retured as though he had merely e in from another room, as though he had never left even for a minute. He shook hands and said nothing, no greeting, no question, no story. He merely said: "I must sleep," he seemed to be terribly tired. He sent Erich away a into his room o the workshop. There he pulled off his cap a drop, took off his shoes and walked over to the bed. Farther ba the room he saw his madonna standing under a cloth; he nodded but did not go up to her to take off the cloth and greet her. Instead he crept to the little window, saw Erich waiting uneasily outside, and called down to him: "Erich, you tell anybody that Im back. Im very tired. It wait until tomorrow."
Then he lay down on the bed in his clothes. After a while, since he could not fall asleep, he got up and walked heavily to the wall to look into a small mirror that hung there. Attentively he looked at the Goldmund who stared back at him out of the mirror, a weary Goldmund, a man who had grown tired and old and wilted, with much gray in his beard. It was an old, somewhat u man who looked back at him from the little mirrors dull surface—but strangely unfamiliar. It did not seem to be properly present; it did not seem to be of much to him. It reminded him of other faces he had known, a little of Master Niklaus, a little of the old knight who had once had a pages outfit made for him, and also a little of St. Jacob in the church, of old bearded St. Jacob who looked so a and gray under his pilgrims hat, aill joyous and good.
Carefully he read the mirror face, as though he were ied in finding out about this stranger. He o him and knew him again: yes, it was he; it correspoo the feeling he had about himself. Aremely tired old man, who had grown slightly numb, who had returned from a journey, an ordinary man in whom one could not take much pride. A he had nothing against him. He still liked him; there was something in his face that the earlier, pretty Goldmund had not had. In all the fatigue and disiion there was a trace of te, or at least of detat. He laughed softly to himself and saw the mirror image join him: a fine fellow he had brought home from his trip! Pretty much torn and burned out, he was returning from his little excursion. He had not only sacrificed his horse, his satchel, and his gold pieces; other things, too, had gotten lost or deserted him: youth, health, self-fidehe color in his cheeks and the for his eyes. Yet he liked the image: this weak old fellow in the mirror was dearer to him than the Goldmund he had been for so long. He was older, weaker, more piti