For a long time, Siddhartha had lived
the life of the world and of lust, though without
being a part of it. His senses, which he had
killed off in hot years as a Samana, had awoken again,
he had tasted riches, had tasted lust, had tasted
power; nevertheless he had still remained in his heart
for a long time a Samana; Kamala, being smart, had
realized this quite right. It was still the
art of thinking, of waiting, of fasting, which guided
his life; still the people of the world, the childlike
people, had remained alien to him as he was alien to
them.
Years passed by; surrounded by the
good life, Siddhartha hardly felt them fading away.
He had become rich, for quite a while he possessed
a house of his own and his own servants, and a garden
before the city by the river. The people liked
him, they came to him, whenever they needed money
or advice, but there was nobody close to him, except
Kamala.
That high, bright state of being awake,
which he had experienced that one time at the height
of his youth, in those days after Gotama’s sermon,
after the separation from Govinda, that tense expectation,
that proud state of standing alone without teachings
and without teachers, that supple willingness to listen
to the divine voice in his own heart, had slowly become
a memory, had been fleeting; distant and quiet, the
holy source murmured, which used to be near, which
used to murmur within himself. Nevertheless,
many things he had learned from the Samanas, he had
learned from Gotama, he had learned from his father
the Brahman, had remained within him for a long time
afterwards: moderate living, joy of thinking,
hours of meditation, secret knowledge of the self,
of his eternal entity, which is neither body nor consciousness.
Many a part of this he still had, but one part after
another had been submerged and had gathered dust.
Just as a potter’s wheel, once it has been
set in motion, will keep on turning for a long time
and only slowly lose its vigour and come to a stop,
thus Siddhartha’s soul had kept on turning the
wheel of asceticism, the wheel of thinking, the wheel
of differentiation for a long time, still turning,
but it turned slowly and hesitantly and was close
to coming to a standstill. Slowly, like humidity
entering the dying stem of a tree, filling it slowly
and making it rot, the world and sloth had entered
Siddhartha’s soul, slowly it filled his soul,
made it heavy, made it tired, put it to sleep.
On the other hand, his senses had become alive, there
was much they had learned, much they had experienced.
Siddhartha had learned to trade, to
use his power over people, to enjoy himself with a
woman, he had learned to wear beautiful clothes, to
give orders to servants, to bathe in perfumed waters.
He had learned to eat tenderly and carefully prepared
food, even fish, even meat and poultry, spices and
sweets, and to drink wine, which causes sloth and
forgetfulness. He had learned to play with dice
and on a chess-board, to watch dancing girls, to have
himself carried about in a sedan-chair, to sleep on
a soft bed. But still he had felt different from
and superior to the others; always he had watched
them with some mockery, some mocking disdain, with
the same disdain which a Samana constantly feels for
the people of the world. When Kamaswami was ailing,
when he was annoyed, when he felt insulted, when he
was vexed by his worries as a merchant, Siddhartha
had always watched it with mockery. Just slowly
and imperceptibly, as the harvest seasons and rainy
seasons passed by, his mockery had become more tired,
his superiority had become more quiet. Just
slowly, among his growing riches, Siddhartha had assumed
something of the childlike people’s ways for
himself, something of their childlikeness and of their
fearfulness. And yet, he envied them, envied
them just the more, the more similar he became to them.
He envied them for the one thing that was missing
from him and that they had, the importance they were
able to attach to their lives, the amount of passion
in their joys and fears, the fearful but sweet happiness
of being constantly in love. These people were
all of the time in love with themselves, with women,
with their children, with honours or money, with plans
or hopes. But he did not learn this from them,
this out of all things, this joy of a child and this
foolishness of a child; he learned from them out of
all things the unpleasant ones, which he himself despised.
It happened more and more often that, in the morning
after having had company the night before, he stayed
in bed for a long time, felt unable to think and tired.
It happened that he became angry and impatient, when
Kamaswami bored him with his worries. It happened
that he laughed just too loud, when he lost a game
of dice. His face was still smarter and more
spiritual than others, but it rarely laughed, and
assumed, one after another, those features which are
so often found in the faces of rich people, those
features of discontent, of sickliness, of ill-humour,
of sloth, of a lack of love. Slowly the disease
of the soul, which rich people have, grabbed hold of
him.
Like a veil, like a thin mist, tiredness
came over Siddhartha, slowly, getting a bit denser
every day, a bit murkier every month, a bit heavier
every year. As a new dress becomes old in time,
loses its beautiful colour in time, gets stains, gets
wrinkles, gets worn off at the seams, and starts to
show threadbare spots here and there, thus Siddhartha’s
new life, which he had started after his separation
from Govinda, had grown old, lost colour and splendour
as the years passed by, was gathering wrinkles and
stains, and hidden at bottom, already showing its
ugliness here and there, disappointment and disgust
were waiting. Siddhartha did not notice it.
He only noticed that this bright and reliable voice
inside of him, which had awoken in him at that time
and had ever guided him in his best times, had become
silent.
He had been captured by the world,
by lust, covetousness, sloth, and finally also by
that vice which he had used to despise and mock the
most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed.
Property, possessions, and riches also had finally
captured him; they were no longer a game and trifles
to him, had become a shackle and a burden. On
a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into
this final and most base of all dependencies, by means
of the game of dice. It was since that time,
when he had stopped being a Samana in his heart, that
Siddhartha began to play the game for money and precious
things, which he at other times only joined with a
smile and casually as a custom of the childlike people,
with an increasing rage and passion. He was a
feared gambler, few dared to take him on, so high and
audacious were his stakes. He played the game
due to a pain of his heart, losing and wasting his
wretched money in the game brought him an angry joy,
in no other way he could demonstrate his disdain for
wealth, the merchants’ false god, more clearly
and more mockingly. Thus he gambled with high
stakes and mercilessly, hating himself, mocking himself,
won thousands, threw away thousands, lost money, lost
jewelry, lost a house in the country, won again, lost
again. That fear, that terrible and petrifying
fear, which he felt while he was rolling the dice,
while he was worried about losing high stakes, that
fear he loved and sought to always renew it, always
increase it, always get it to a slightly higher level,
for in this feeling alone he still felt something
like happiness, something like an intoxication, something
like an elevated form of life in the midst of his
saturated, lukewarm, dull life.
And after each big loss, his mind
was set on new riches, pursued the trade more zealously,
forced his debtors more strictly to pay, because he
wanted to continue gambling, he wanted to continue
squandering, continue demonstrating his disdain of
wealth. Siddhartha lost his calmness when losses
occurred, lost his patience when he was not payed
on time, lost his kindness towards beggars, lost his
disposition for giving away and loaning money to those
who petitioned him. He, who gambled away tens
of thousands at one roll of the dice and laughed at
it, became more strict and more petty in his business,
occasionally dreaming at night about money!
And whenever he woke up from this ugly spell, whenever
he found his face in the mirror at the bedroom’s
wall to have aged and become more ugly, whenever embarrassment
and disgust came over him, he continued fleeing, fleeing
into a new game, fleeing into a numbing of his mind
brought on by sex, by wine, and from there he fled
back into the urge to pile up and obtain possessions.
In this pointless cycle he ran, growing tired, growing
old, growing ill.
Then the time came when a dream warned
him. He had spend the hours of the evening with
Kamala, in her beautiful pleasure-garden. They
had been sitting under the trees, talking, and Kamala
had said thoughtful words, words behind which a sadness
and tiredness lay hidden. She had asked him
to tell her about Gotama, and could not hear enough
of him, how clear his eyes, how still and beautiful
his mouth, how kind his smile, how peaceful his walk
had been. For a long time, he had to tell her
about the exalted Buddha, and Kamala had sighed and
had said: “One day, perhaps soon, I’ll
also follow that Buddha. I’ll give him
my pleasure-garden for a gift and take my refuge in
his teachings.” But after this, she had
aroused him, and had tied him to her in the act of
making love with painful fervour, biting and in tears,
as if, once more, she wanted to squeeze the last sweet
drop out of this vain, fleeting pleasure. Never
before, it had become so strangely clear to Siddhartha,
how closely lust was akin to death. Then he had
lain by her side, and Kamala’s face had been
close to him, and under her eyes and next to the corners
of her mouth he had, as clearly as never before, read
a fearful inscription, an inscription of small lines,
of slight grooves, an inscription reminiscent of autumn
and old age, just as Siddhartha himself, who was only
in his forties, had already noticed, here and there,
gray hairs among his black ones. Tiredness was
written on Kamala’s beautiful face, tiredness
from walking a long path, which has no happy destination,
tiredness and the beginning of withering, and concealed,
still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety:
fear of old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having
to die. With a sigh, he had bid his farewell
to her, the soul full of reluctance, and full of concealed
anxiety.
Then, Siddhartha had spent the night
in his house with dancing girls and wine, had acted
as if he was superior to them towards the fellow-members
of his caste, though this was no longer true, had drunk
much wine and gone to bed a long time after midnight,
being tired and yet excited, close to weeping and
despair, and had for a long time sought to sleep in
vain, his heart full of misery which he thought he
could not bear any longer, full of a disgust which
he felt penetrating his entire body like the lukewarm,
repulsive taste of the wine, the just too sweet, dull
music, the just too soft smile of the dancing girls,
the just too sweet scent of their hair and breasts.
But more than by anything else, he was disgusted
by himself, by his perfumed hair, by the smell of
wine from his mouth, by the flabby tiredness and listlessness
of his skin. Like when someone, who has eaten
and drunk far too much, vomits it back up again with
agonising pain and is nevertheless glad about the
relief, thus this sleepless man wished to free himself
of these pleasures, these habits and all of this pointless
life and himself, in an immense burst of disgust.
Not until the light of the morning and the beginning
of the first activities in the street before his city-house,
he had slightly fallen asleep, had found for a few
moments a half unconsciousness, a hint of sleep.
In those moments, he had a dream:
Kamala owned a small, rare singing
bird in a golden cage. Of this bird, he dreamt.
He dreamt: this bird had become mute, who at
other times always used to sing in the morning, and
since this arose his attention, he stepped in front
of the cage and looked inside; there the small bird
was dead and lay stiff on the ground. He took
it out, weighed it for a moment in his hand, and then
threw it away, out in the street, and in the same
moment, he felt terribly shocked, and his heart hurt,
as if he had thrown away from himself all value and
everything good by throwing out this dead bird.
Starting up from this dream, he felt
encompassed by a deep sadness. Worthless, so
it seemed to him, worthless and pointless was the way
he had been going through life; nothing which was
alive, nothing which was in some way delicious or
worth keeping he had left in his hands. Alone
he stood there and empty like a castaway on the shore.
With a gloomy mind, Siddhartha went
to the pleasure-garden he owned, locked the gate,
sat down under a mango-tree, felt death in his heart
and horror in his chest, sat and sensed how everything
died in him, withered in him, came to an end in him.
By and by, he gathered his thoughts, and in his mind,
he once again went the entire path of his life, starting
with the first days he could remember. When was
there ever a time when he had experienced happiness,
felt a true bliss? Oh yes, several times he
had experienced such a thing. In his years as
a boy, he has had a taste of it, when he had obtained
praise from the Brahmáns, he had felt it in his
heart: “There is a path in front of the
one who has distinguished himself in the recitation
of the holy verses, in the dispute with the learned
ones, as an assistant in the offerings.”
Then, he had felt it in his heart: “There
is a path in front of you, you are destined for, the
gods are awaiting you.” And again, as
a young man, when the ever rising, upward fleeing,
goal of all thinking had ripped him out of and up from
the multitude of those seeking the same goal, when
he wrestled in pain for the purpose of Brahman, when
every obtained knowledge only kindled new thirst in
him, then again he had, in the midst of the thirst,
in the midst of the pain felt this very same thing:
“Go on! Go on! You are called upon!”
He had heard this voice when he had left his home
and had chosen the life of a Samana, and again when
he had gone away from the Samanas to that perfected
one, and also when he had gone away from him to the
uncertain. For how long had he not heard this
voice any more, for how long had he reached no height
any more, how even and dull was the manner in which
his path had passed through life, for many long years,
without a high goal, without thirst, without elevation,
content with small lustful pleasures and yet never
satisfied! For all of these many years, without
knowing it himself, he had tried hard and longed to
become a man like those many, like those children,
and in all this, his life had been much more miserable
and poorer than theirs, and their goals were not his,
nor their worries; after all, that entire world of
the Kamaswami-people had only been a game to him,
a dance he would watch, a comedy. Only Kamala
had been dear, had been valuable to him but
was she still thus? Did he still need her, or
she him? Did they not play a game without an
ending? Was it necessary to live for this?
No, it was not necessary! The name of this
game was Sansara, a game for children, a game which
was perhaps enjoyable to play once, twice, ten times but
for ever and ever over again?
Then, Siddhartha knew that the game
was over, that he could not play it any more.
Shivers ran over his body, inside of him, so he felt,
something had died.
That entire day, he sat under the
mango-tree, thinking of his father, thinking of Govinda,
thinking of Gotama. Did he have to leave them
to become a Kamaswami? He still sat there, when
the night had fallen. When, looking up, he caught
sight of the stars, he thought: “Here I’m
sitting under my mango-tree, in my pleasure-garden.”
He smiled a little was it really necessary,
was it right, was it not as foolish game, that he
owned a mango-tree, that he owned a garden?
He also put an end to this, this also
died in him. He rose, bid his farewell to the
mango-tree, his farewell to the pleasure-garden.
Since he had been without food this day, he felt
strong hunger, and thought of his house in the city,
of his chamber and bed, of the table with the meals
on it. He smiled tiredly, shook himself, and
bid his farewell to these things.
In the same hour of the night, Siddhartha
left his garden, left the city, and never came back.
For a long time, Kamaswami had people look for him,
thinking that he had fallen into the hands of robbers.
Kamala had no one look for him. When she was
told that Siddhartha had disappeared, she was not
astonished. Did she not always expect it?
Was he not a Samana, a man who was at home nowhere,
a pilgrim? And most of all, she had felt this
the last time they had been together, and she was
happy, in spite of all the pain of the loss, that she
had pulled him so affectionately to her heart for
this last time, that she had felt one more time to
be so completely possessed and penetrated by him.
When she received the first news of
Siddhartha’s disappearance, she went to the
window, where she held a rare singing bird captive
in a golden cage. She opened the door of the
cage, took the bird out and let it fly. For
a long time, she gazed after it, the flying bird.
From this day on, she received no more visitors and
kept her house locked. But after some time,
she became aware that she was pregnant from the last
time she was together with Siddhartha.