Siddhartha Read online

  Siddhartha was unable to follow his friend's advice; he could not give up his son. He allowed the boy to order him about and treat him with contempt. He kept his peace and waited, each day recommencing the silent battle of kindness, the soundless war of patience. Vasudeva also waited and held his peace, in kindness, wisdom, and forbearance. In patience, both of them were masters.

  Once when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala, Siddhartha suddenly remembered something Kamala had once said to him a long time before, in the days of their youth. "You cannot love," she had said, and he had agreed that she was right, comparing himself to a star and the child people to falling leaves; nonetheless, he had felt a reproach in what she'd said. It was true that he had never been able to lose himself entirely in another person, give himself to another, forget himself, commit the follies of love for the sake of another; never had he been able to do this--and this, it had seemed to him at the time, was the great difference separating him from the child people. But now, ever since his son had come, he, Siddhartha, had become a child person in his own right, suffering because of another person, loving another person, lost, a fool, because of love. Now he too felt for once in his life, late as it was, this strongest and strangest of passions, was suffering because of it, suffering terribly, and yet he was blissful; he felt somehow renewed, somehow richer.

  He could sense quite distinctly that this blind love for his son was a passion, something very human, that it was Sansara, a muddy spring, dark water. Yet at the same time he felt that it was not without value--it was necessary, it came out of his own being. This too was pleasure that had to be atoned for; this too, pain to be experienced; these too, follies to be committed.

  Meanwhile, his son let him go on committing these follies, let him go on trying to win him over, let him humble himself daily before his moods. There was nothing about this father to delight him, nothing he might have feared. He was a good man, this father, a good, kind, gentle man, very pious perhaps, perhaps a saint--none of these were traits that might have served to win the boy's heart. What a bore this father was, keeping him trapped in this miserable hut, a bore who received all sorts of bad behavior with a smile, responded to insults with amicability and to wicked deeds with kindness. This was the old hypocrite's most contemptible trick. The boy would have much preferred to be threatened and mistreated.

  The day arrived when young Siddhartha's volition reached the bursting point and he turned openly against his father. Siddhartha had given the boy a task. He was to go collect brushwood. But the boy did not leave the hut; he remained standing there, defiant and furious, stamping the floor and balling up his fists, and in a violent outburst he shouted his hatred and contempt into his father's face.

  "Go fetch your brushwood yourself!" he cried, seething. "I am not your servant! I know you will not strike me, you wouldn't dare; I know you are constantly trying to punish me and belittle me with your piousness and forbearance. You want me to become just like you, just as pious, just as gentle, just as wise! I, on the other hand--mark my words!--would rather, just to spite you, become a highwayman and murderer and go to hell than be like you! I hate you! You are not my father, even if you were my mother's lover ten times over!"

  Anger and grief overflowed in him, bubbling up in a hundred harsh and wicked words directed at his father. Then the boy ran off and did not return until late in the evening.

  The next morning, however, he was gone. Gone too was a small basket, woven of two shades of bast fiber, in which the ferrymen kept the copper and silver coins they received for their services. Gone too was the boat; Siddhartha saw it lying on the opposite shore. The boy had run away.

  "I have to follow him," said Siddhartha, who had been trembling with misery since the boy's outburst the day before. "A child cannot walk through the forest all alone. He will perish. We have to build a raft, Vasudeva, to get across the water."

  "We will build a raft," Vasudeva said, "in order to retrieve our boat, which the boy has taken. But as for the boy himself, you should let him go, my friend. He is no longer a child; he can look after himself. He is trying to make his way back to the city, and he is right to do so, remember this. He is doing what you yourself failed to do. He is providing for himself, choosing his own path. Oh, Siddhartha, I can see that you are suffering, but this is pain of a sort that is tempting to laugh about--even you will soon be laughing at it!"

  Siddhartha did not respond. He already held the ax in his hand and was beginning to make a raft out of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him bind the trunks together with grass rope. Then they crossed to the other side, drifting far downstream, and pulled the raft back up along the opposite shore.

  "Why did you bring the ax with you?" Siddhartha asked.

  Vasudeva said, "It is possible that our boat's oar might be lost."

  Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He thought the boy would have thrown away or broken the oar to avenge himself and keep them from following him. And indeed there was no longer an oar in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked at his friend with a smile, as if to say, See what your son is trying to tell you? See that he wishes not to be followed? But he did not say this in words. He set about constructing a new oar. Siddhartha, however, took leave of him in order to search for the runaway. Vasudeva did not stop him.

  Siddhartha had been hurrying through the forest for a long time when it occurred to him that his search was in vain. Either the boy was far ahead of him and had already reached the city, he thought, or, if he was still on his way, he would hide from his pursuer. As he continued to think, he realized that he was not in truth worried about his son; in his heart he knew that the boy neither had perished nor was threatened by dangers in the forest. Nonetheless, he continued to run without stopping, no longer because he wished to rescue the boy but merely out of desire, in the hope of perhaps seeing him once more. And he ran all the way to the outskirts of the city.

  When he reached the main road just outside town, he remained standing at the entrance to the beautiful pleasure garden that had belonged to Kamala, where he had seen her for the first time, sitting in her sedan chair. What once had been now stirred again in his soul. Once more he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded naked Samana, his hair full of dust. For a long time Siddhartha stood there gazing through the open gate into the garden, where monks in yellow robes walked beneath the beautiful trees.

  For a long time he stood there reflecting, seeing images, hearing the tale of his own life. For a long time he stood there gazing at the monks, seeing instead of them the young man Siddhartha, seeing young Kamala strolling beneath the lofty trees. Distinctly he saw himself being served food and drink by Kamala, receiving her first kiss, looking back with pride and scorn upon his life as a Brahmin, and filled with pride and desire as he began his worldly life. He saw Kamaswami, saw the servants, saw the banquets, the dice players, the musicians, saw Kamala's songbird in its cage, lived all these things over again, breathed Sansara, was once more old and weary, once more felt the nausea, felt the desire to extinguish himself, and once more recovered thanks to the holy Om.

  After he had stood for a long time beside the gate to the garden, Siddhartha realized it had been a foolish desire that had driven him to this place. He could not help his son and he should not cling to him. Deeply he felt his love for the runaway boy in his heart--it was like a wound--yet at the same time he felt that this wound had not been given him that he might wallow in it: This wound was to be a radiant blossom.

  That his wound was not yet blossoming, not yet radiant, made him sad. In place of his goal, the object of the desires that had drawn him here, drawn him to follow his runaway son, he found only emptiness. Sadly he sat down, felt something dying in his heart, felt emptiness, no longer saw any joy before him, any goal. Immersed in these thoughts, he sat and waited. This he had learned beside the river, this one thing: to wait, to be patient, to listen. And he sat there listening in the dust of the road, listening to his he
art beating wearily and sadly, waiting for a voice. For hours he squatted there listening, no longer seeing any images, sinking into the emptiness, letting himself sink with no path before his eyes. And when he felt his wound stinging, he soundlessly pronounced the word Om, filled himself with Om. The monks in the garden saw him, and as he remained squatting there for many hours, the dust collecting in his gray hair, one of them came up and placed two pisang fruits beside him. The old man did not notice.

  From this paralysis he was awakened by a hand touching his shoulder. Instantly recognizing this touch, gentle and modest, he came to again. He stood up and greeted Vasudeva, who had come after him. And when he gazed into Vasudeva's kind face, gazed at the little wrinkles that looked as if they were bursting with laughter, gazed into his merry eyes, he smiled as well. Now he saw the pisang fruits lying before him; he picked them up, gave one to the ferryman, and ate the other himself. Then, without a word, he accompanied Vasudeva back into the woods and returned home to the ferry. Neither spoke of what had taken place that day, neither spoke the name of the boy, neither spoke of his flight, neither spoke of the wound. In the hut, Siddhartha lay down on his bed and when, some time later, Vasudeva came to his bedside to offer him a bowl of coconut milk, he found him already sleeping.

  OM

  For a long time his wound continued to smart. A number of the travelers Siddhartha ferried across the river had a son or daughter with them, and he was never able to look at them without feeling envy, without thinking, So many, many thousands enjoy this most precious sort of happiness; why can't I? Even wicked people, even thieves and robbers have children and love them and are loved by them; I alone do not. How simple his thoughts had now become, how lacking in understanding. That's how greatly he had come to resemble the child people.

  He now saw people differently than he had before, less cleverly, less proudly, but more warmly, with more curiosity and empathy. When he ferried ordinary sorts of people across the river, child people, tradespeople, warriors, womenfolk, they did not appear so strange to him as once they had; he understood them. He shared their life, which was governed not by thoughts and insights but by drives and desires; he felt like one of them. Although he had nearly reached perfection and still felt the pangs of his recent wound, it seemed to him as if these child people were his brothers. Their vanities, desires, and ridiculous habits were losing their ridiculousness for him; they were becoming comprehensible, lovable, even worthy of respect. A mother's blind love for her child, a self-satisfied father's blind pride in his one little son, a vain young woman's blind, furious urge to bedeck herself with jewels and attract men's admiring glances--all these drives, all these childish matters, all these simple, foolish, but enormously strong, strongly alive, strongly asserted drives and desires were no longer mere child's play to Siddhartha; he saw people living for their sake, saw them performing endless feats for their sake--making journeys, waging wars, suffering endless sufferings, enduring endless burdens--and he was able to love them for this; he saw life, the living, the indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their deeds. Lovable and admirable these people were in their blind fidelity, their blind strength and tenacity. They were lacking in almost nothing; the one thing possessed by the thinker, the man of knowledge, that they lacked was only a trifle, one small thing: consciousness, conscious thought of the Oneness of all things. And at times Siddhartha even doubted whether this knowledge, this thinking, should be so highly valued, wondered whether it too was not perhaps the child's play of thought people, who might be the child people of thought. In all other matters, the worldly were the wise man's equals, were in fact far superior to him in many ways, just as animals, in their tenacious, unerring performance of what is necessary, can appear superior to people at certain moments.

  Slowly blossoming, slowly ripening within Siddhartha, was the realization and knowledge of what wisdom and the goal of his long search really was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, a capacity, the secret art of being able at every moment, without ceasing to live, to think the thought of Oneness, to feel Oneness and breathe it in. Slowly this was blossoming within him, shining out at him from Vasudeva's aged childish face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, Oneness.

  His wound, however, continued to smart. With longing and bitterness Siddhartha thought of his son, nurtured the love and tenderness in his heart, allowed the pain to gnaw at him, committed all the follies of love. This was a flame that would not go out of its own accord.

  One day when the wound was violently burning, Siddhartha crossed the river, driven by longing, got out of the boat, and was of a mind to go to the city again and look for his son. The river was flowing gently and softly; it was the dry season, but its voice sounded odd; it was laughing! It was distinctly laughing. The river was laughing, brightly and clearly laughing at the old ferryman. Siddhartha stopped. He leaned over the water to hear better and saw his face reflected in the calm streaming water, and in this mirrored face there was something that stirred his memory, something forgotten, and when he considered further, he realized what it was: This face resembled another face he had once known and loved and also feared. It resembled the face of his father, the Brahmin. And he remembered how, a very long time ago, he, a mere youth, had forced his father to let him go to join the penitents, how he had taken leave of him, and then he had gone and had never again returned. Had not his father suffered the same pain he himself was now suffering on account of his son? Had not his father died long ago, without ever having seen his son again? Must not he himself expect the same fate? Was not this repetition a comedy, a strange and foolish thing, this constant circulation in a preordained course?

  The river laughed. Yes, it was true, everything returned again that had not been fully suffered and resolved; it was always the same sorrows being suffered over and over. Siddhartha, however, climbed into the boat again and crossed back over to where the hut was with the river laughing at him, thinking of his father, thinking of his son, locked in battle with himself, feeling inclined to plunge into despair but equally inclined to join in this laughter at himself and all the world. Oh, his wound had not yet blossomed; his heart was still struggling against fate; merriment and victory did not yet shine from his sorrow. But he did feel hope, and when he had returned to the hut, he felt an unconquerable desire to reveal himself to Vasudeva, to show him everything, tell everything to him, the master listener.

  Vasudeva was sitting in the hut weaving a basket. He no longer operated the ferry. His eyes were beginning to grow weak, and not only his eyes but his arms and hands as well. Alone unchanged and blossoming were the joy and the gay benevolence of his face.

  Siddhartha sat down beside the old man and slowly began to speak. Things they had never said before, of these he now spoke, telling of the journey he had made to the city, of his stinging wound, of his envy when he beheld happy fathers, of his knowledge of the foolishness of such desires, of struggling in vain to resist them. All these things he now recounted; he was able to speak of all of them, even the most embarrassing things. Everything could be told, everything displayed; he could say all of it. He showed Vasudeva his wound and also told the story of his flight that day, of his crossing the river, a childish refugee intending to journey on to the city, and how the river had laughed.

  He spoke for a long time, and as Vasudeva listened with his still face, Siddhartha felt Vasudeva's listening more strongly than ever before. He could sense how his pain and his anxieties were flowing away from him, felt his secret hopes flow away and then come back toward him from the other side. Showing this listener his wound was just the same as bathing it in the river until it became cool and one with the water. As he continued to speak, continued to confess and recount, Siddhartha felt more and more strongly that it was no longer Vasudeva listening to him, no longer a human being, that this motionless listener was drinking in his confession as a tree drinks in rain, that this motionless one was the river, God, the Eternal
itself. And as Siddhartha ceased to think of himself and his wound, his recognition of the changed essence of Vasudeva took possession of him; the more deeply he felt it and entered into it, the less strange it became and the more he realized that all this was as it should be and natural, that Vasudeva had been this way a long time, nearly always; it was just that he himself had not quite recognized it, and that in fact he himself was scarcely different from Vasudeva any longer. He became aware that he was now seeing old Vasudeva the way people see the gods, and that this could not go on indefinitely; in his heart he began to take leave of Vasudeva. All this time he was continuing to speak.

  When he had finished, Vasudeva fixed his kind and now somewhat feeble gaze upon him without speaking, silently radiating love and gaiety in his direction, understanding and knowledge. He took Siddhartha's hand, led him to their seat on the riverbank, sat down there with him, and smiled at the river.

  "You have heard the river laugh," he said, "but you have not heard everything. Let us listen; you will hear more."

  They listened. Gently, the many-voiced song of the river rang out. Siddhartha gazed into the streaming water, and in the water images appeared to him--his father appeared, lonely, mourning for his son; he himself appeared, lonely, and also bound to his distant son with the bands of longing; his son appeared, himself lonely, the boy eagerly storming down the flaming path of his young desires--each one with his sights set on his own goal, each one possessed by his goal, each one suffering. The river sang with a voice of sorrow; it sang longingly, and longingly it flowed on toward its goal, its voice a lament.

  Do you hear? Vasudeva's mute gaze asked. Siddhartha nodded. "Listen better!" Vasudeva whispered.

  Siddhartha made an effort to listen better. The image of his father, his own image, and the image of his son all flowed together; Kamala's image also appeared and dissolved, and the image of Govinda, and other images; they all flowed together. All became the river, all of them striving as river to reach their goal, longingly, eagerly, suffering, and the river's voice rang out full of longing, full of burning sorrow, full of unquenchable desire. The river strove to its goal; Siddhartha saw it hurrying along, the river that was made of himself and those he loved and all the people he had ever seen; all the waves and waters were hurrying, suffering, toward goals, many goals--the waterfall, the lake, the rapids, the sea--and all these goals were reached, and each of them was followed by a new goal, and the water turned to steam and rose into the sky; it became rain and plunged down from the heavens; it became a spring, became a brook, became a river, striving anew, flowing anew. But the longing voice had changed. It still rang out, sorrowfully, searchingly, but other voices now joined it, voices of joy and of sorrow, good and wicked voices, laughing and mourning, a hundred voices, a thousand.