When the Black Death devastates the region, Goldmund encounters human existence at its ugliest. However, in the end, Goldmund refuses an offer of guild membership, preferring the freedom of the road. After seeing a particularly beautiful, carved Madonna in a church, he feels his own artistic talent awakening and seeks out the master carver, with whom he studies for several years. Goldmund finds he is very attractive to women, and has numerous love affairs. With Narcissus' help, he leaves the monastery and embarks on a wandering existence. This encounter becomes his epiphany he now knows he was never meant to be a monk. After straying too far in the fields one day on an errand gathering herbs, Goldmund comes across a beautiful Gypsy woman, who kisses him and invites him to make love. Goldmund looks up to Narcissus, and Narcissus has much fondness for him in return. Narcissus (German: 'Narziss' or, before the German orthography reform of 1996, Narziß ), a gifted young teacher at the cloister school, quickly befriends Goldmund, as they are only a few years apart, and Goldmund is naturally bright. Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of a young man, Goldmund ( pronounced ), who wanders aimlessly throughout Medieval Germany after leaving a Catholic monastery school in search of what could be described as 'the meaning of life'.

At its publication, Narcissus and Goldmund was considered Hesse's literary triumph chronologically, it follows Steppenwolf.

Narcissus and Goldmund ( German: Narziß und Goldmund also published as Death and the Lover) is a novel written by the German–Swiss author Hermann Hesse which was first published in 1930.

Hermann hesse narziss ve goldmund