Goldmund's Final Journey and Rejection by Agnes

Goldmund's final journey is both a failed return to an old love and a turning point in his approach to suffering and death. He sets out after hearing that Agnes is nearby, but her rejection dissolves the hope behind the journey; an accident and a vision of his mother then reshape the meaning of his pain and lead him back to Narcissus.

The Journey and Its Hidden Aim

Goldmund later explains that the journey began with a rumor: Count Heinrich had returned to the region, and Agnes was with him. He wanted to see Agnes again and imagined that they might recover their former happiness. The journey therefore carries a private hope that he does not initially disclose to Narcissus. Goldmund eventually admits that he had not simply ridden away without a destination; his desire to find Agnes had directed him from the outset.

After about a week, he found Agnes and had the opportunity to speak with her. She no longer wanted a relationship with him. Goldmund understood her rejection as a judgment that he had grown too old and was no longer attractive or entertaining to her. He later calls this the real end of the journey: the hoped-for reunion had failed, even though he continued riding rather than immediately returning to Narcissus.

The Accident and Its Consequences

After leaving Agnes, Goldmund continued on, unwilling to return feeling disappointed and ridiculous. While riding, he and his horse fell into a gully and a stream. He remained in the cold water through the night and believed he had broken several ribs. The chest pain that persisted during his final illness began with this accident. When the pain made riding impossible, he sold his horse and spent a long time in a hospital.

Goldmund later connected the accident not only with physical suffering but with a changed response to the prospect of death. He contrasts his earlier fear of dying in Count Heinrich's prison with the different acceptance he experienced after the fall. At first, he says, he had been too strong and wild to face death; after the accident, he no longer regarded it with the same terror. He also says that he had made peace with his chest pain, though not with God or with the world as God had made it.

The Vision of His Mother

During the night in the stream, Goldmund experienced what he describes as a dream or vision. In the midst of his pain, he heard his mother's voice, which he had not heard since childhood, and saw her holding him. In the vision, she reached between his ribs to draw out his heart; once he understood what he was seeing, the pain ceased to feel like an enemy. Later episodes of chest pain took on the same meaning for him: he imagined his mother at work within him, or saw her face among the clouds, drawing his heart toward her.

This vision gives the accident a meaning beyond its immediate consequences. Goldmund does not describe the pain as cured; rather, he comes to understand it through the maternal image that had returned to him after Narcissus revived his forgotten memories. He associates his mother with experiences and figures from his life, including Lise and Master Niklaus's beautiful Madonna, and with life, love, ecstasy, fear, hunger, and instinct. In his account, she is now also joined to death.

Return and Reversal

Goldmund's account is told after he has returned to Mariabronn and is ill. The full story of the journey remains partly unknown: he shares some details, while others are inferred, and Narcissus records fragments of his reports and confessions. His explanation reveals that the journey's outward aim of finding Agnes had already collapsed before the accident that made his return unavoidable.

Goldmund tells Narcissus that he will stay and will not ride away again. He gives up wandering, dancing, and seeking women, saying that he had wanted to return to drawing and making figures before his life ended. The journey thus reverses his habitual movement outward: rejection and injury close the prospect of renewed happiness with Agnes, while the vision transforms pain into an intimate connection with his mother. Narcissus, who says he had missed Goldmund and feared he would never come back, receives him at the end of a journey whose most important disclosures emerge only in their final conversations.