Het gaat niet om de regenboog zelf, maar om het zoeken ernaar

The expression “Het gaat niet om de regenboog zelf, maar om het zoeken ernaar” names the realization at the heart of Tirillo’s story: a journey can matter more than the goal that first set it in motion. Its force comes from the contrast between the traveler’s imagined endpoint and the knowledge he gains along the way.

The Parable’s Journey

Tirillo tells Piak and Tiuri about a man who sees a rainbow as a high, rounded bridge whose ends touch the earth. The man sets out hoping to reach its end and cross to the other side of the world. His journey carries him past cities and villages, across fields and deserts, over flowing rivers, and through dense forests. As the destination draws nearer, so does his longing for the wonders he expects to find there.

Piak responds that he, too, once wanted to try such a journey, then asks what happened. That response places the tale’s imaginative promise beside a listener’s own former wish; Tirillo answers not with a literal account of reaching another world, but with a reversal of expectation.

The Vanished Destination

When the traveler arrives, the rainbow has disappeared. The place where it had seemed to touch the earth looks like any other place, and he is deeply saddened. The anticipated destination has offered no extraordinary revelation. What changes his understanding is his recollection of the beauty he saw, the experiences he gathered, and what he learned while travelling. The search, first undertaken as a means of reaching the rainbow’s end, becomes valuable in its own right.

He returns home with a glad heart, thinking that more rainbows will surely come. On his arrival, one stands over his house. The ending renews the image that began the journey, but the traveler’s happiness now rests on what he has understood rather than on possession of the distant endpoint.

Meaning in the Garden Scene

Tirillo tells the story in the garden while he and his companions sit quietly and watch the river and the city across it grow dim in the evening. The parable’s river crossings and long passage through varied landscapes give its reflection on seeking a concrete shape. When Piak asks whether the story is finished, Tirillo confirms that it is: the lesson is carried by the traveler’s changed understanding and the final rainbow over home, not by further explanation.

The expression does not dismiss the goal: the man begins with a vivid hope of reaching the rainbow. Instead, it shifts the measure of success. The endpoint may vanish or prove ordinary, while the pursuit leaves the traveler with experiences and knowledge that the destination could not have supplied.