Part 5
"You are the best lover," she said thoughtfully, "that I have seen. You are stronger than others, more supple, more willing. You have learned my art well, Siddhartha. Someday, when I am older, I want to have a child by you. And yet, dear one, you have remained a Samana, yet you love me not, you love no one. Is it not so?"
"It may well be so," said Siddhartha wearily. "I am like you. You too do not love—how else could you practice love as an art? People of our kind perhaps cannot love. The child-people can; that is their secret."
SANSARA
For a long time Siddhartha had lived the life of the world and of the lusts, without truly belonging to it. His senses, which he had killed in the hot Samana years, had awakened again; he had tasted riches, had tasted pleasure, had tasted power; yet for a long time he had remained a Samana at heart, and this Kamala the clever had rightly perceived. Still it was the art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting, by which his life was governed; still the people of the world, the child-people, had remained strange to him, as he was strange to them.
The years drifted by; wrapped in well-being, Siddhartha scarcely felt them fade. He had grown rich, he had long possessed his own house and his own servants, and a garden before the city by the river. People liked him, they came to him when they needed money or counsel, but no one stood close to him except Kamala.
That high, bright wakefulness, which he had once experienced at the height of his youth, in the days after Gotama's sermon, after parting from Govinda—that tense expectation, that proud standing-alone without teachings and without teachers, that supple readiness to hear the divine voice in his own heart—had gradually become memory, had been perishable; far and faint murmured the holy spring that had once been near, that had once murmured within himself. Much indeed of what he had learned from the Samanas, what he had learned from Gotama, what he had learned from his father the Brahman, had long remained in him: temperate living, joy in thinking, hours of absorption, secret knowledge of the self, of the eternal I that is neither body nor consciousness. Some of this had remained in him, but one thing after another had sunk and covered itself with dust. Like the potter's wheel, once set in motion, keeps turning for a long time and only slowly tires and swings out, so in Siddhartha's soul the wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the wheel of discernment had long kept turning, still turned, but it turned slowly and hesitantly and was near to standing still. Slowly, as moisture penetrates the dying tree-stump, slowly fills it and makes it rot, so the world and sluggishness had penetrated Siddhartha's soul, slowly filled his soul, made it heavy, made it weary, lulled it to sleep. In return his senses had become alive, they had learned much, experienced much.
Siddhartha had learned to trade, to exercise power over men, to take his pleasure with the woman; he had learned to wear fine clothes, to command servants, to bathe in fragrant waters. He had learned to eat carefully and delicately prepared foods, even fish, even flesh and fowl, spices and sweets, and to drink wine that makes one lazy and forgetful. He had learned to play with dice and on the chessboard, to watch dancing girls, to be carried in a sedan chair, to sleep on a soft bed. But still he had felt himself different from the others and superior to them, still he had looked upon them with a little mockery, with a little scornful contempt, with precisely that contempt which a Samana always feels for worldlings. When Kamaswami was ailing, when he was angry, when he felt offended, when he was plagued by his merchant's cares, Siddhartha had always looked on with mockery. Only slowly and imperceptibly, with the passing harvest seasons and rainy seasons, had his mockery grown wearier, had his superiority grown quieter. Only slowly, amid his growing riches, had Siddhartha himself taken on something of the nature of the child-people, something of their childishness and their timidity. And yet he envied them, envied them all the more the more like them he became. He envied them for the one thing that was lacking in him and that they possessed: for the importance they were able to attach to their life, for the passionateness of their joys and fears, for the anxious yet sweet happiness of their eternal being in love. In themselves, in women, in their children, in honor or money, in plans or hopes, these people were forever in love. He, however, did not learn this from them, precisely not this, this childlike joy and childlike folly; from them he learned precisely the unpleasant, which he himself despised. It happened ever more often that in the morning after a convivial evening he lay long abed and felt dull and weary. It happened that he grew angry and impatient when Kamaswami detained him long with his cares. It happened that he laughed too loud when he lost at dice. His face was still cleverer and more spiritual than others, but it laughed seldom, and took on one by one those features so often found in the faces of rich men: those features of discontent, of ailing, of ill humor, of sloth, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul-sickness of the rich seized him.
Like a veil, like a thin mist, weariness descended upon Siddhartha, slowly, each day a little denser, each month a little dimmer, each year a little heavier. As a new garment grows old with time, with time loses its beautiful color, gets spots, gets wrinkles, is frayed at the hems and begins here and there to show bare, threadbare places, so Siddhartha's new life, which he had begun after parting from Govinda, had grown old, so it lost color and luster with the passing years, so folds and spots gathered upon it, and hidden in its depths, here and there already peeping forth ugly, waited disappointment and disgust. Siddhartha did not notice it. He noticed only that that bright and certain voice of his innermost, which had once awakened in him and in his shining times had ever and again guided him, had grown silent.
The world had captured him, lust, covetousness, sloth, and at last that vice also which he had always most despised and mocked as the most foolish: avarice. Even property, possession and riches had finally captured him, was no longer play and trifle to him, had become chain and burden. By a strange and cunning path Siddhartha had fallen into this last and basest dependence, through the game of dice. For since the time when he had ceased in his heart to be a Samana, Siddhartha began to play for money and precious things, which he had formerly joined in smilingly and carelessly as a custom of the child-people, with an increasing fury and passion. He was a feared player, few dared play with him, so high and bold were his stakes. He pursued the game out of the need of his heart; the losing and squandering of the wretched money created for him an angry joy; in no other way could he show more clearly and scornfully his contempt for riches, the idol of the merchants. Thus he played high and mercilessly, hating himself, mocking himself, raked in thousands, threw away thousands, gambled away money, gambled away jewels, gambled away a country house, won again, gambled away again. That fear, that terrible and oppressive fear, which he felt during the throwing of the dice, during the anxiousness for high stakes, that fear he loved and always sought to renew, always to heighten, always to tickle higher, for in this feeling alone he still felt something like happiness, something like intoxication, something like heightened life amid his sated, lukewarm, flat life.
And after every great loss he schemed for new wealth, pursued trade more eagerly, forced his debtors more strictly to pay, for he wanted to play on, he wanted to squander on, to show his contempt for riches on. Siddhartha lost his composure at losses, he lost patience with tardy payers, lost good nature toward beggars, lost the pleasure of giving and lending money to supplicants. He, who had gambled away ten thousand on a throw and laughed at it, became stricter and pettier in trade, at times dreamt of money by night! And as often as he awoke from this ugly enchantment, as often as he saw his face in the mirror on the bedroom wall grown older and uglier, as often as shame and disgust seized him, he fled further, fled into new gambling, fled into stupefactions of lust, of wine, and from there back into the drive of hoarding and acquiring. In this senseless cycle he ran himself weary, ran himself old, ran himself sick.
Then a dream once admonished him. He had spent the evening hours with Kamala, in her beautiful pleasure garden. They had sat beneath the trees, in conversation, and Kamala had spoken thoughtful words, words behind which lay hidden a sorrow and weariness. She had begged him to tell of Gotama, and could not hear enough of how pure his eye had been, how still and beautiful his mouth, how kindly his smile, how peaceful his gait. Long had he had to tell her of the exalted Buddha, and Kamala had sighed, and had said: "Someday, perhaps soon, I too will follow this Buddha. I will give him my pleasure garden, and will take refuge in his teaching." But then she had excited him, and in love's play had bound him to her with painful fervor, with bites and with tears, as if she would press out once more the last sweet drop from this vain, perishable pleasure. Never had it become so strangely clear to Siddhartha how near lust is akin to death. Then he had lain at her side, and Kamala's face had been near him, and beneath her eyes and beside the corners of her mouth he had read, more clearly than never before, an anxious writing, a writing of fine lines, of faint furrows, a writing that reminded of autumn and of age, as indeed Siddhartha himself, who was only in his forties, had already here and there noticed grey hairs among his black. Weariness was written on Kamala's beautiful face, weariness from walking a long path that has no joyful goal, weariness and beginning withering, and a concealed, not yet spoken, perhaps not even yet known anxiety: fear of old age, fear of autumn, fear of having to die. Sighing he had taken leave of her, his soul full of displeasure, and full of concealed anxiety.
Then Siddhartha had spent the night in his house with dancing girls over wine, had played the superior among his peers, which he no longer was, had drunk much wine and sought his bed after midnight, weary and yet excited, near to weeping and despair, and had long sought sleep in vain, his heart full of a misery he thought he could no longer bear, full of a disgust with which he felt himself permeated like with the lukewarm, repulsive taste of the wine, the all-too-sweet, empty music, the all-too-soft smile of the dancing girls, the all-too-sweet scent of their hair and breasts. But more than before all else he was disgusted with himself, with his fragrant hair, with the wine-smell of his mouth, with the slack weariness and displeasure of his skin. As when one who has eaten or drunk too much, in torments vomits it up again and yet is glad of the relief, so the sleepless one wished, in an enormous surge of disgust, to rid himself of these pleasures, these habits, this whole senseless life and of himself. Only at the gleam of morning and the awakening of the first business on the street before his town house did he fall into a doze, had for a few moments a half-stupefaction, a presentiment of sleep. In these moments he had a dream:
Kamala kept in a golden cage a small rare songbird. Of this bird he dreamt. He dreamt: this bird had fallen silent, which otherwise always sang at morning hour, and as this struck him, he stepped before the cage and looked in, and there the little bird was dead and lay stiff on the ground. He took it out, weighed it a moment in his hand and then threw it away, out onto the lane, and at the same moment he was seized with terrible fright, and his heart pained, as if with this dead bird he had cast away all worth and all good from himself.
Starting up from this dream, he felt himself enveloped by deep sadness. Worthless, so it seemed to him, worthless and senseless had he conducted his life; nothing living, nothing in any way precious or worth keeping had remained in his hands. Alone he stood and empty, like a shipwrecked man on the shore.
Gloomily Siddhartha went into a pleasure garden that belonged to him, locked the gate, sat down beneath a mango tree, felt death in his heart and dread in his breast, sat and perceived how it died in him, withered in him, came to an end in him. Gradually he gathered his thoughts, and in spirit went once more through the whole path of his life, from the first days he could remember. When then had he experienced a happiness, felt a true delight? Oh yes, several times he had experienced such. In boyhood he had tasted it, when he had won praise from the Brahmans; then he had felt it in his heart: "A path lies before the reciting of the holy verses, in disputation with the learned, as assistant at the sacrifice distinguished." Then he had felt it in his heart: "A path lies before you, to which you are called, the gods await you." And again as a youth, when the ever higher soaring goal of all reflection had torn him out of and beyond the company of like-strivers, when he wrestled in pains for the meaning of the Brahman, when every attained knowledge only awakened new thirst in him, then again, amid the thirst, amid the pain, he had felt the same: "Onward! Onward! You are called!" This voice he had heard, when he left his home and chose the life of a Samana, and again, when he went from the Samanas to that Perfected One, and from him too into the uncertain. How long had he not heard this voice, how long reached no height, how even and barren had his path gone, many long years, without high goal, without thirst, without elevation, content with small pleasures and yet never satisfied! All these years he had, without knowing it himself, striven and longed to become a man like these many, like these children, and thereby his life had been much more wretched and poorer than theirs, for their goals were not his, nor their cares; this whole world of the Kamaswami-people had after all been but a game to him, a dance one looks on at, a comedy. Only Kamala had been dear to him, had been valuable to him—but was she still? Did he still need her, or she him? Did they not play a game without end? Was it necessary to live for that? No, it was not necessary! This game was called Sansara, a game for children, a game, perhaps lovely to play, once, twice, ten times—but always and always again?
Then Siddhartha knew that the game was at an end, that he could no longer play it. A shudder ran over his body, in his innermost, so he felt, something had died.
That whole day he sat beneath the mango tree, mindful of his father, mindful of Govinda, mindful of Gotama. Had he had to leave these to become a Kamaswami? He sat still when night had fallen. When he looked up and beheld the stars, he thought: "Here I sit beneath my mango tree, in my pleasure garden." He smiled a little—was it then necessary, was it right, was it not a foolish game, that he owned a mango tree, that he owned a garden?
With this too he made an end, with this too died in him. He rose, took leave of the mango tree, leave of the pleasure garden. Since he had remained without food that day, he felt violent hunger, and thought of his house in the city, of his chamber and bed, of the table with the foods. He smiled wearily, shook himself and took leave of these things.
In the same hour of night Siddhartha left his garden, left the city and never returned. Long did Kamaswami have him sought, who believed him fallen into robbers' hands. Kamala did not have him sought. When she learned that Siddhartha had vanished, she wondered not. Had she not always expected it? Was he not a Samana, a homeless one, a pilgrim? And most of all had she felt this at their last meeting, and she rejoiced amid the pain of loss, that she had drawn him to her heart so intimately that last time, had felt possessed and permeated by him once more so wholly.
When she received the first news of Siddhartha's disappearance, she went to the window, where she kept in a golden cage a rare songbird. She opened the door of the cage, took the bird out and let it fly. Long she watched the flying bird. From that day on she received no visitors, and kept her house locked. After some time, however, she perceived that she was with child from the last union with Siddhartha.
BY THE RIVER
Siddhartha wandered in the forest, already far from the city, and knew nothing but this one thing, that he could not return, that this life, as he had now led it for many years, was past and gone and tasted and sucked out to disgust. Dead was the songbird of which he had dreamt. Dead was the bird in his heart. Deep was he entangled in Sansara, disgust and death he had sucked into himself from all sides, like a sponge sucks water till it is full. Full was he of surfeit, full of misery, full of death, nothing more was there in the world that could tempt him, that could cheer him, that could comfort him.
Longingly he wished to know nothing more of himself, to have rest, to be dead. Would but a lightning bolt strike and slay him! Would but a tiger come and devour him! Were there but a wine, a poison, that brought him stupefaction, forgetting and sleep, and no awakening more! Was there yet any filth with which he had not defiled himself, a sin and folly he had not committed, a barrenness of soul he had not loaded upon himself? Was it then still possible to live? Was it possible to draw breath again and again, to exhale, to feel hunger, to eat again, to sleep again, to lie with the woman again? Was this cycle not exhausted and concluded for him?
Siddhartha came to the great river in the forest, the same river over which a ferryman had once led him, when he was still a young man and came from the city of Gotama. At this river he halted, remained hesitating at the shore. Weariness and hunger had weakened him, and why should he go on, whither then, to what goal? No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the deep, sorrowful longing to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spew out this flat wine, to put an end to this pitiful and shameful life.
Over the river bank a tree bent, a coconut palm, against whose trunk Siddhartha leaned his shoulder, laid his arm about the trunk and looked down into the green water that flowed and flowed beneath him, looked down and found himself wholly filled with the wish to let go and sink under in this water. A ghastly emptiness mirrored itself to him from the water, which the fearful emptiness in his soul answered. Yes, he was at an end. There was nothing more for him but to extinguish himself, to shatter the miscarried fabric of his life, to throw it away, before the feet of mocking gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for: death, the shattering of the form he hated! Let the fishes eat this dog of Siddhartha, this madman, this corrupted and rotten body, this slackened and misused soul! Let the fishes and crocodiles eat him, let the demons tear him apart!
With distorted face he stared into the water, saw his face mirrored and spat after it. In deep weariness he loosened his arm from the tree trunk and turned a little, to let himself fall vertically down, to sink at last. He sank, with closed eyes, toward death.
Then from remote regions of his soul, from pasts of his wearied life, a sound twitched. It was a word, a syllable, which he spoke before him with babbling voice without thought, the old beginning-word and ending-word of all Brahman prayers, the holy "OM", which means as much as "the Perfect" or "the Completion". And in the moment when the sound "Om" touched Siddhartha's ear, his slumbering spirit awoke suddenly, and recognized the folly of his deed.
Siddhartha was deeply startled. So it stood with him, so lost was he, so erred and forsaken by all knowledge, that he could have sought death, that this wish, this childish wish could have grown great in him: to find rest by extinguishing his body! What all the torment of these last times, all sobering, all despair had not effected, that effected this moment, when the Om pierced his consciousness: that he recognized himself in his misery and in his error.
Om! spoke he before him: Om! And knew of Brahman, knew of the indestructibility of life, knew again of all that was divine, which he had forgotten.
Yet this was only a moment, a flash. At the foot of the coconut palm Siddhartha sank down, stretched out by fatigue, murmuring Om, laid his head on the root of the tree and sank into deep sleep.
Deep was his sleep and free of dreams, for a long time he had known no such sleep. When he awoke after many hours, it was to him as if ten years had passed, he heard the soft flowing of the water, knew not where he was and who had brought him hither, opened his eyes, saw with wonder trees and sky above him, and remembered where he was and how he had come hither. Yet this required a long while, and the past appeared to him as if veiled, infinitely remote, infinitely far away, infinitely indifferent. He knew only that he had left his former life (in the first moment of recollection this former life appeared to him like a far distant, former embodiment, like an early prebirth of his present I)—that he had left his former life, that full of disgust and misery he had even wanted to throw away his life, that he had come to himself by a river, beneath a coconut palm, the holy word Om on his lips, then had fallen asleep, and now awoke as a new man and looked into the world. Softly he spoke the word Om before him, upon which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him his whole long sleep had been nothing but a long, sunken speaking of Om, an Om-thinking, a submerging and complete entering into Om, into the Nameless, the Perfect.
What a wonderful sleep this had been! Never had a sleep so refreshed him, so renewed him, so rejuvenated him! Perhaps he had truly died, had gone under and been reborn in a new shape? But no, he knew himself, knew his hands and his feet, knew the place where he lay, knew this I in his breast, this Siddhartha, the self-willed, the strange one, but this Siddhartha was nonetheless transformed, was renewed, was strangely well-rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”