Siddhartha Read online

  "It is so." Vasudeva nodded. "All the voices of the creatures are in its voice."

  "And do you know," Siddhartha went on, "what word it is the river is speaking when you succeed in hearing all its ten thousand voices at once?"

  Vasudeva smiled happily; he leaned toward Siddhartha and spoke the holy Om into his ear. And this was just what Siddhartha had heard.

  And each time Siddhartha smiled, his face became more and more like that of the ferryman, almost as beaming, almost as suffused with happiness, almost as shining from a thousand tiny wrinkles, as childish, as aged. Many travelers, seeing the two ferrymen together, took them for brothers. Often they sat together in the evenings beside the riverbank on the tree trunk, sat in silence, both listening to the water, which for them was not water but rather the voice of Life, the voice of Being, of the eternally Becoming. And from time to time it would happen that both of them, listening to the river, thought of the same things--of a conversation from the day before yesterday, of one of their travelers whose face and destiny occupied them, of death, of their childhoods--and both of them would glance at each other at just the same moment when the river had said something good to them, and both were thinking precisely the same thing; both men were glad about the same answer they had received to the same question.

  There was something about the ferry and the two ferrymen that some travelers could feel. From time to time it would happen that a passenger, having looked into the face of one of the ferrymen, began to tell the story of his life, told of his sorrow, confessed to wicked deeds, asked for consolation or counsel. From time to time it would happen that someone asked for permission to spend an evening with them so as to listen to the river. It happened, too, that the curious came, people who had heard it said that this ferry was home to two wise men or magicians or saints. The curious asked many questions, but they received no answers, and they found neither magicians nor wise men; they found only two old, friendly little men who appeared to be mute and somewhat odd and benighted. And the curious laughed and conversed with one another about how foolishly and credulously people spread such empty rumors.

  The years passed without anyone counting them. Then one day monks arrived on a pilgrimage, disciples of Gautama, the Buddha, asking to be ferried across the river, and from them the ferrymen learned that they were journeying back to see their great teacher as swiftly as possible because the news had reached them that the Sublime One was gravely ill and would soon die his last human death and attain salvation. Not long after, another group of monks came to the ferry on their pilgrimage, and then another, and not only the monks but most of the other travelers and wanderers as well spoke of nothing but Gautama and his impending death. And just as people come streaming through the countryside from all directions to witness a military campaign or the coronation of a king--gathering here and there in little groups like ants--this is how they came streaming now, as if drawn by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha was awaiting his death, where this colossal event would take place and the great man of the epoch, the Perfect One, would go to his glory.

  Siddhartha thought often in these days of the wise man on his deathbed, the great teacher whose voice had prevailed on entire peoples and roused hundreds of thousands, whose voice he too had once heard, whose holy countenance he too had once gazed upon with awe. He thought of him with affection, saw the path of his perfection in his mind's eye, and with a smile recalled the words with which he had once, as a young man, addressed the Sublime One. These words, it now appeared to him, had been proud and precocious; he smiled as he remembered them. A long time ago he had realized there was no longer anything separating him from Gautama, whose doctrine he had been unable to accept. No, a true seeker could not accept doctrine, not a seeker who truly wished to find. But the one who had found what he was seeking could give his approval to any teaching, any discipline at all, to any path, any goal--there was no longer anything separating him from the thousand others who were living in the Eternal and breathing the Divine.

  On one of these days when so many were making pilgrimages to see the dying Buddha, Kamala was among the pilgrims: Kamala, once the most beautiful of courtesans. She had long since withdrawn from her former way of life, had given her garden to Gautama's monks, had taken refuge in his teachings, and was one of those women who provided for and gave friendship to the pilgrims. Together with the boy Siddhartha, her son, she had set out as soon as word of Gautama's impending death reached her, set out wearing simple clothes and on foot. She had been walking beside the river with her little son, but the boy soon grew tired and wanted to go home, wanted to rest, wanted to eat, became stubborn and tearful. Frequently Kamala had to stop with him; he was accustomed to having his way, and she had to feed him, console him, and scold him. He didn't understand why he was having to go on this exhausting, gloomy pilgrimage with his mother, having to go to a strange place to see a man he did not know who was holy and now lay dying. Let him die; what was it to the boy?

  The pilgrims were approaching Vasudeva's ferry when little Siddhartha again forced his mother to stop and rest. Even Kamala was exhausted, and while the boy was chewing on a banana, she squatted down on the ground, closed her eyes for a little, and rested. But suddenly she gave a piteous wail. The boy looked at her, terrified, and saw her face ashen with horror; beneath her dress a small black snake darted out that had just bitten her.

  Quickly the two of them raced down the path to get to where people were; not far from the ferry, Kamala collapsed, unable to go on. But the boy began wailing with misery, kissing and embracing his mother between his cries, and she too joined in his loud cries for help until the noise reached the ears of Vasudeva, who was standing beside the ferry. He ran up, took the woman in his arms, and carried her to the boat, the boy running alongside, and soon they all reached the hut where Siddhartha stood at the hearth, making a fire. He glanced up and saw first the face of the boy, which he found strangely evocative, reminiscent of things long forgotten. Then he saw Kamala, whom he recognized at once, though she lay unconscious in the arms of the ferryman, and now he knew it was his own son whose face had so struck him, and his heart stirred in his breast.

  They washed Kamala's wound, but it was already black and her body swollen; they poured a medicinal drink between her lips. She came to again as she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut, and bending over her stood Siddhartha, who had once loved her. Thinking it all a dream, she gazed, smiling, into the face of her friend; only slowly, as the awareness of her circumstances returned to her, did she remember the bite and call out anxiously for the boy.

  "He is here with you, do not worry," Siddhartha said.

  Kamala looked into his eyes. Her tongue was heavy as she spoke, numbed by the poison. "You have grown old, my love," she said. "You have turned gray. But you resemble the young Samana who once came into my garden with no clothes on and with dust on his feet. You resemble him far more closely now than you did the day you left me, left Kamaswami. In your eyes you resemble him, Siddhartha. Oh, I too have grown old. Were you nonetheless able to recognize me?"

  Siddhartha smiled. "I recognized you at once, Kamala, my love."

  Kamala pointed to her boy and said, "Did you recognize him as well? He is your son."

  She glanced about wildly, then her eyes fell shut. The boy began to cry. Siddhartha took him on his lap, let him cry, caressed his hair, and when he looked into the childish face he was reminded of a Brahmin prayer he had once learned when he himself was a small boy. Slowly, in a singsong voice, he began to recite it; the words came flooding back to him from the past, from childhood. And his chanting made the boy grow quiet; he now gave only the occasional sob, and then he fell asleep. Siddhartha laid him upon Vasudeva's bed. Vasudeva stood at the hearth, cooking rice. Siddhartha threw him a glance that he returned, smiling.

  "She is going to die," Siddhartha said quietly.

  Vasudeva nodded, the glow of the fire on the hearth flickering across his kind face.

  Kamala reg
ained consciousness one last time. Her face was contorted with pain; Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her lips, on her pallid cheeks. In silence he read it, attentively, waiting, immersed in her suffering. Kamala could feel this; her gaze sought his. Looking at him, she said, "Now I see that even your eyes have changed. They have become completely different. How am I still able to recognize that you are Siddhartha? You both are and are not."

  Siddhartha did not speak; in silence his eyes met hers.

  "Have you reached it?" she asked. "Have you found peace?"

  He smiled and laid his hand upon hers.

  "I can see you have," she said, "I can see it. I too will find peace."

  "You have found it," Siddhartha said in a whisper.

  Kamala gazed intently into his eyes. She thought about how she had wanted to make a pilgrimage to see Gautama in order to behold the face of a Perfect One, to breathe in his peace, and now she had found not Gautama but this man, and this was good, just as good as if she had seen the other one. She wanted to tell him this, but her tongue would no longer obey her will. Silently she gazed at him, and he watched as the life ebbed from her eyes. When the final agony had filled them and left them lifeless, when the final shudder had trembled through her body, he ran his fingers down her eyelids to close them.

  For a long time he sat there, gazing at her face in its repose. For a long time he regarded her mouth, her old, weary mouth whose lips had grown narrow, and remembered that he had once, in the spring of his years, compared this mouth to a fig split in two. For a long time he sat there, reading this pallid face, these weary wrinkles, filling himself with the sight, and he saw his own face lying there in just the same way, just as white, just as lifeless, and at the same time saw his face and hers young again, with red lips and burning eyes, and the feeling of presence and simultaneity flooded through him, the feeling of eternity. He felt deeply in this hour, more deeply than ever before, the indestructibility of every life, the eternity of every moment.

  When he stood up, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him, but Siddhartha did not eat. In the lean-to where they kept their goat, the two old men spread out straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay down to sleep. But Siddhartha went out and sat before the hut, listening to the river, with the past eddying around him, touched and enfolded by all the ages of his life at once. Only once, after a little while, did he get up, go to the door of the hut, and listen to make sure the boy was asleep.

  Early the next morning, even before the sun had shown itself, Vasudeva emerged from the lean-to and joined his friend.

  "You did not sleep," he said.

  "No, Vasudeva. I sat here and listened to the river. It told me many things, filled me deeply with salutary thought, with the thought of Oneness."

  "You have experienced sorrow, Siddhartha, yet I can see that no sadness has entered your heart."

  "No, dear friend, how could I be sad? I, who was already rich and happy, have been made even richer and happier. My son has been given to me."

  "I too welcome your son. But now, Siddhartha, let us set to work; there is much to do. Kamala died on the very bed where my wife died before her. Let us build Kamala's funeral pyre on the very same hill where I once built the pyre for my wife."

  While the boy was still sleeping, they built the pyre.

  THE SON

  The boy had been shy and weeping as he attended his mother's funeral; he had been sullen and shy as he listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and bade him welcome in Vasudeva's hut. Pallid, he sat for days beside the dead woman's hillock, refused to eat, shut his eyes, and shut his heart, struggling against Fate, resisting it.

  Siddhartha was gentle with him and let him do as he wished; he honored his grief. Siddhartha understood that his son did not know him, that he could not love him as a father. Slowly, too, he began to realize that this eleven-year-old was spoiled, a mama's boy; he had been raised among all the amenities of wealth and was used to fine meals, a soft bed, and giving orders to servants. Siddhartha understood that this spoiled, grief-stricken boy was utterly incapable of resigning himself suddenly and obligingly to an unfamiliar life of poverty, so he did not force him. He performed various chores for him, always saving him the choicest morsels. Slowly, he hoped, he would be able to win him over with kindness and patience.

  Rich and happy is what he'd called himself when the boy had come to him. But when with the passing of time the boy remained a sullen stranger, when he displayed a proud and stubborn heart, refused to work, showed no reverence for his elders, and plundered Vasudeva's fruit trees, Siddhartha began to understand that it was not happiness and peace that had come to him with his son but, rather, sorrow and worry. But he loved him and preferred the sorrow and worry of love to the happiness and peace he had known without the boy.

  Since young Siddhartha's arrival in the hut, the two old men had split up their work. Vasudeva had once more begun to perform the duties of ferryman on his own, while Siddhartha, wanting to keep his son near him, took over the work in the hut and the field.

  For a long time, for long months, Siddhartha waited for his son to understand him, to accept his love and perhaps even return it. For long months Vasudeva waited, observing this: waited and kept his peace. One day, when the boy Siddhartha had yet again tormented his father with his defiance and moods and had broken both rice bowls, Vasudeva took his friend aside in the evening and spoke with him.

  "Forgive me," he said. "I am speaking to you with a friend's heart. I can see you are suffering, I can see you are troubled. Your son, my friend, is making you worry, and I also worry on his account. This young bird is accustomed to a different life, a different nest. Unlike you, he did not flee from wealth, from the city, out of nausea and surfeit; he was forced to leave them behind against his will. I have asked the river, my friend; many times I have asked it. But the river only laughs--it laughs at me, both at me and at you, shakes with laughter at our foolishness. Water seeks out water; youth seeks out youth. Your son is not in a place where he can flourish. Ask the river and hear its counsel for yourself!"

  Distressed, Siddhartha gazed into Vasudeva's kind face, in whose many furrows a constant gaiety resided.

  "Could I bring myself to part with him?" he asked quietly, ashamed. "Give me more time, my friend! I am fighting for him, you see, trying to win his heart and hoping to capture it with loving-kindness and patience. To him too the river must speak someday; he too has a calling."

  Vasudeva's smile blossomed more warmly. "Indeed, he too has a calling; he too will enjoy eternal life. But do we know, you and I, to what he has been called: to what path, to what deeds, to what sufferings? His sorrows will not be slight, for his heart is proud and hard; those like him must suffer a great deal, commit many errors, do much wrong, pile much sin upon themselves. Tell me, my friend, are you educating your son? Do you force him? Do you strike him? Do you punish him?"

  "No, Vasudeva, I do none of these things."

  "This I knew. You do not force him, do not strike him, do not command him because you know that soft is stronger than hard, water stronger than rock, love stronger than violence. Very good, I praise you. But is it not an error for you to think that you are not forcing him, not punishing him? Do you not bind him with the bands of your love? Do you not shame him daily and make things more difficult for him with your kindness and patience? Are you not forcing him, the arrogant and spoiled boy, to live in a hut with two old banana eaters for whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts cannot be his, whose hearts are old and still and beat differently from his? Do all these things not force him, punish him?"

  In dismay, Siddhartha cast his eyes down. Softly he asked, "What do you think I should do?"

  Vasudeva said, "Take him to the city, to his mother's house. There will still be servants there; give him to them. And if there is no one left, take him to a teacher, not because of what he will learn but because he will then be among other boys and girls, in the world where he belongs. Have you never thought of this?"


  "You have seen into my heart," Siddhartha said sadly. "Often I have thought of this. But tell me, how can I release him into this world when his heart is so ungentle to begin with? Will he not become a hedonist, will he not lose himself in pleasure and power, will he not repeat all his father's errors, will he not become perhaps forever lost in Sansara?"

  The ferryman's smile radiated brightness; he touched Siddhartha's arm gently and said, "Ask the river, my friend! Listen to its laughter! Or do you really believe that you committed your own follies so as to spare your son from committing them? And will you be able to save your son from Sansara? How, with doctrine, with prayer, with admonitions? My friend, have you entirely forgotten that instructive story about Siddhartha, the Brahmin's son, that you once related to me here in this very spot? Who saved the Samana Siddhartha from Sansara, from sin, from greed, from folly? Were his father's piety, his teachers' admonitions, his own knowledge, and his own searching able to protect him? What father, what teacher, was able to protect him from living life himself, soiling himself with life, accumulating guilt, drinking the bitter drink, finding his own path? Do you think then, my friend, that this path might be spared anyone at all? Perhaps your little son, because you love him and would like to spare him sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But even if you died ten times for him, you would not succeed in relieving him of even the smallest fraction of his destiny."

  Never before had Vasudeva spoken so many words at once. Siddhartha thanked him warmly, went into the hut with his heart full of worry, and for a long time could not find sleep. Vasudeva had told him nothing that he himself had not already thought and known. But it was a knowledge he could not act on; stronger than this knowledge was his love for the boy, his tenderness, his fear of losing him. Had he ever given his heart so completely to anything, had he ever loved another person so deeply, so blindly, with so much suffering, with so little success and yet so happily?