Narcissus withdraws for fasting and night vigils

Narcissus withdraws from teaching and worldly conversation to undertake fasting, prayer, confession, penitence, and repeated night exercises. His retreat is both an expression of his monastic vocation and a turning point in his friendship with Goldmund: it makes visible that Narcissus belongs to the cloister’s disciplined order, while Goldmund’s newly recovered sense of self is leading elsewhere.

Background and Decision

Narcissus has an exceptional place in Mariabronn. Though still a novice, he was appointed to teach Greek, a departure from tradition, and stood alongside Abbot Daniel as one of the two figures who drew unusual attention and respect. The cloister around them joined instruction, administration, worship, and many forms of learning; Narcissus’s withdrawal therefore meant more than a private change of habit. He was stepping back from duties within an active community and returning to the practices that shaped his vowed life.

The immediate context was Goldmund’s recovery from the illness that had unsettled him and the awakening of desires and memories that no longer supported his supposed vocation to become a monk. Narcissus understood that his friend had found sources of feeling and possibility that he could help bring to life but could not share. As Goldmund’s eagerness for scholastic learning and argument diminished, Narcissus himself felt drawn toward seclusion, fasting, long prayers, frequent confession, and voluntary penance.

In their conversation, Narcissus explained that Goldmund’s direction was uncertain, whereas his own goal remained in the cloister and claimed him continually. He said he would ask to be released from teaching before his consecration, then withdraw for many weeks to fast and perform exercises. During that period, he would not speak about worldly matters, including with Goldmund. His decision was not a rejection of their affection: he affirmed that it had not ended, but distinguished friendship from the vowed religious life that required his attention.

The Retreat in Practice

Soon after their conversation, Narcissus became inaccessible. Another instructor took over his courses, and his lectern in the library stood vacant. He had not disappeared from Mariabronn altogether: people occasionally saw him crossing the arcade or heard him praying in a chapel, kneeling on the stone floor. But his presence no longer made him available for ordinary conversation or shared life.

The discipline had a demanding rhythm. Narcissus fasted and rose three times each night to perform exercises. His withdrawal also belonged to a wider pattern of religious observance that included prayer, confession, and penitence. Earlier, in a disagreement over teaching grammar, he had argued persistently for changes, but the authority to decide rested with his superior, and the dispute was referred to Abbot Daniel. The episode places Narcissus’s intellectual confidence within the monastery’s hierarchy; the later retreat shows him directing his intensity not toward changing instruction but toward preparation for consecration and religious discipline.

Effect on Goldmund and Their Friendship

For Goldmund, Narcissus’s retreat turned an anticipated separation into a daily fact. He knew his friend would eventually return to his lectern and place at the refectory table, yet understood that their former closeness would not simply resume. Narcissus had crossed into a sphere that Goldmund could observe but could not enter with him. The retreat therefore gave physical form to the divergence between them: Narcissus remained within an established order, while Goldmund felt called toward a life without a known destination.

That divergence changed how Goldmund saw Mariabronn. He recognized that Narcissus had made the cloister, its teaching, its grammar and logic, and the life of the mind seem desirable to him. The buildings and routines had also mattered through their connection to Narcissus; without him as their center, Goldmund felt less attached to the other teachers, his classmates, and the school’s communal life. In his farewells, even familiar places—the chapel carvings, the cloister garden, the linden trees, and the chestnut tree—began to seem already like memories.

The retreat thus marks a limit as well as a bond in their friendship. Narcissus could awaken Goldmund and help him recognize that a monastic vocation had been mistaken, but he could neither lead nor accompany him into the uncertain life that followed. Goldmund understood the necessity of his friend’s choice even as he grieved its consequences. For Narcissus, fasting and night exercises renewed his dedication to the order he had chosen; for Goldmund, the same withdrawal clarified that the cloister could no longer serve as home.