Just as you sense a sadness at the departing summer, the arrival of Goldmund brings a great waft of warm light and colour.  One of the most beautiful depictions of friendship I have come across is between Goldmund and Narziss, diametrically opposed in character, but always close even when far apart. 

The summer ended; poppies and cornflowers, corn-campion and starwort, withered and vanished, the frogs in the fishponds ceased to croak, the storks flew high, preparing to depart.  Then Goldmund came. 

It’s been a wonderful summer here, our first in Italy, and now we will enjoy the autumn.  May you too, or in reverse order if you are in a different hemisphere. 

And may whoever is a Goldmund in your life soon arrive. 

Source: Hermann Hesse, Narziss and Goldmund, trans. by Geoffrey Dunlop (Harmondsworth: Penguin Modern Classics, 1982), p. 291

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