Parzival greeted the family with due courtesy, for their bearing was noble if not their attire. The old man greeted him in return, but with a rebuke. “I see, sir, that you are a knight. Why is it then that you do not observe this holy season? Why, in God’s Holy Name, do you ride armed, when you should, indeed, be walking barefoot?”
“There was a time,” Parzival answered, “that I knew the name of one called God. I even vowed him my service. But in return, this God gave me nothing but sorrow. So I do not look for help from that source anymore.”
“Do we speak of the same God?” the pilgrim asked. “Do you mean the one who came to earth born of a virgin? Do you mean he who died for our sins upon the dreadful cross on this very day? Do you mean the God who gave his life that all might live?”
Parzival did not answer.
“Follow us,” the pilgrim said gently. “There is a holy man not far from here. To him you can confess your misdeeds, and he will help you find forgiveness.”
The daughters were, to tell the truth, more interested in Parzival’s handsome face than in his sins. They persuaded their father that they should share their food with the knight and urged their parents to find a place where the poor fellow might warm himself. But Parzival thought, It will not do for me to go with these good folk. I no longer serve the God to whom they are devoted. So he thanked the pilgrims for their kindness and went on his unknown way.
Now, though, his mind was churning and his frozen heart began to break up like river ice in the thaw of spring. He recalled from his distant childhood echoes of his mother’s teaching and began to wonder. Who was it hung the stars and spread out the earth? Was it indeed the one called God? If such a one was powerful enough to create all things, might he not be able to grant comfort to a sorrowing soul? “Oh, God, if you can help,” Parzival cried out to the dark forest, “if you can help, then help me now.”
There was no answer from the silent trees, but in the stillness, Parzival felt a tiny stir of hope. “If,” he said to himself, “if God is so great, then he has the power to guide both man and beast. If he wishes to help me, he will guide my horse to find such help. Now,” he said, throwing the reins over the horse’s ears, “go. Go where God chooses.” With that he spurred his horse into a gallop.
Within minutes, the warhorse of Wild Mountain had borne him to the mouth of a cave where there dwelt a holy man, a hermit named Trevrizent. When the good man heard Parzival?
??s greeting, he came out. “Sir,” he said at once, “has some desperate encounter forced you into armor on this holy Good Friday? Dismount, if you will.”
Parzival did so. Then he told the hermit how his horse had brought him there and added, “Sir, if you can, guide me. For I am a sinner.”
“Tether your horse to yonder tree; then come in with me, for I can see that you are bitter cold.”
How good it felt to take off that icy steel and warm his limbs before the fire. There was no wine or meat or bread in that cave, but kindness makes a feast.
When Parzival was warmed, the hermit said, “Tell me, my son, why have you come to me?”
“There was a time,” Parzival said, “when my life was full of joy. I vowed to serve one called God, but he is the grandfather of all my troubles. It is said that God will help, but where was his help for me? He has given me nothing but sorrow.” In his anger, Parzival stood up. He began to pace back and forth before the hermit’s fire.
The hermit sighed. “First, sit you down,” he said. “I would that you could trust God, for he can help us both. He it is that both made the world and saves it by his grace. The angel Lucifer rebelled against God, and then, again, the first man that he made. But God is lover yet of all, and will, I know, be your true help. First, my son, tell me why you have such anger against him.”
“My greatest sorrow is for the Grail,” Parzival said. “And then for my wife. I long for them both.”
“It is fitting that a man should long for his wife,” the hermit said, “but it alarms me that you long for the Grail. That is arrogance itself. Don’t you know that no man approaches the Grail of his own will, but only he that the Grail bids to come? I know this because with these eyes I have seen that holy thing.”
“You were there in the presence of the Grail?” Parzival asked.
“I was,” the hermit replied, but Parzival could not bring himself to say that he, too, had seen the Grail.
“I do not boast,” the hermit continued, “for it was not by my deserving that I saw the Grail but by God’s grace. Guard against pride, my son.” Trevrizent stirred the embers so that they danced up. He seemed not to see the pain in Parzival’s eyes. “I shall tell you an unhappy tale of pride. There is a king called Anfortas, whose pride has brought him to the most terrible agony. In his youth, he pursued vain honor and the admiration of pretty ladies. These things are not in accord with the Grail. Now he lies there at Wild Mountain guarded by the knights of the Grail, who do not let anyone enter there, except”—and here the hermit sighed—“one callow youth, and for him it would have been better if he had never come. He failed to ask about the king’s wound and so rode away bound in sin.”
He turned now to look Parzival in the face. “But I digress. Anfortas was son and heir to that castle, but he was not content to follow the direction of the Grail. One of the castle knights had met his death in a joust and lost his armor and warhorse thereby to a knight named Lahelin.” His eyes narrowed. “Your name is not Lahelin, is it? I ask because I saw on your horse’s saddle the sign of the turtledove, which is the emblem of the knights of Wild Mountain.”
“No,” Parzival answered. “I am the son of a man who died in battle. I beg you remember him in your prayers. His name was Gahmuret. I am not Lahelin. I never stripped a corpse but once, when I was a green youth who knew no better. I should confess this crime to you. I slew Sir Ither, the Red Knight, with a javelin, and when he was stretched out dead, I took from him his armor, his weapons, and his horse.”
“Then you are Parzival,” the hermit said. “Alas, poor nephew, you have sinned more than you know, for you are blood kin to Ither, whose blood you have shed. And more than that, my dear sister Herzoloyde has died for sorrow that you left her side.”
“Don’t tell me that!” Parzival cried. “If you are my uncle, tell me in truth. Tell me that I have not killed both my cousin and my mother.”
“I cannot lie,” the holy man said. “You broke my sister’s heart when you left. Another sister, the mother to that unfortunate Sigune, died at her daughter’s birth. Our youngest and last remaining sister serves as mistress in Wild Mountain, where my poor brother is king but has no joy in that title.
“Your grandfather, King Frimutel, died when we were young, and my brother Anfortas became his heir. But when the first bristles appeared on his cheek, he sought out many loves and bold adventure, careless of the life that must be lived by one who is protector of the Grail.
“A heathen king approached, determined to win the Grail for himself, and Anfortas, arrayed in pride, rode out to joust with him. The heathen king was slain, but my brother carried back to Wild Mountain the point of that infidel’s lance and part of the shaft, buried in his side. He was so pale, we thought that he would surely die, but the physician probed deep into that wound until he drew out both lance point and bamboo shaft. In gratitude, I gave up all knightly honor on that day and gave myself to God.
“ ‘Who will be protector of the Grail?’ they asked, for my brother’s wound had festered. But I did not believe that God would let him die. We carried him into the presence of the Grail, and indeed, he did not die. But his continued life proved affliction greater than death would ever be.
“We sent to every part of the world for herbs and balms and antidotes, but there was nothing found that could ease his pain. At last, we fell down before the Grail and on our knees asked for some sign that his agony would have an end. We were directed to a certain ancient writing. A knight would come, it said, and ask the question, and all our sorrows would be ended. But no one, man, woman, or child, was to prompt the knight. He must ask the question out of his own compassion or else it would prove harmful to the king, causing him pain more terrible than before. If the knight should fail to ask the question, then so would fail his power to heal. But if he should ask the question, then that same knight would become king and all sorrow would cease. Anfortas would be healed, but he would be king no more.”