Road 2 Elsewhere, Excerpt #41*: Lust amongst the fragrant herbs

Herman Hesse (and an attractive Dutchwoman) tried to teach me about love. Naturally, I wasn't listening. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE

ALAS, I FAILED TO RECORD ANY DETAILS of my birthday encounter with Diamant, in Paris, though I did find plenty of occasions to transcribe passages from Narziss and Goldmund, the fetching Dutchwoman’s birthday gift to me.

“The riddle was still unsolved, the hidden magic unrevealed,” Hesse wrote, and I did too, in my journal. “In the end, people grew old, and looked comic, like old Father Anselm, or wise old Abbot Daniel, though really perhaps they still knew nothing, still waited, pricking up their ears.”

Aphrodite is the Greek god of sex, love, and procreation. Why don’t we develop a religion around her, I wonder? She’s kind of the anti-celibate, which is a good thing for our species.

Ears were the only thing I was pricking, at that point.

Also germane, from Hesse: “What a fool he had been not to keep his mouth shut. Words are not needed in love.”

Diamant is not around now to ask, now, so I will: What did her gift mean, if anything? 

In his no…