prompt:
Chapter: SANSARA

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
Brahmans, 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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: We plumb the depths of the world of illusion in the sequence entitled "Sansara." Sansara, the polar opposite of Nirvana, is identified in the Buddhist system with illusion, spiritual death, and ultimate despair. Many years pass during this sequence that takes place in the city, and the fine poetic image of the potter's wheel symbolizes Siddhartha's spiritual awareness grinding to a halt. Siddhartha has abandoned his soul for a life that will become a barren, sterile waste for him, and because Siddhartha is an intellectual, ennui and soul sickness set in. Siddhartha becomes obsessively acquisitive and yet, at heart, he is contemptuous of wealth; again, then, he is part of a vicious circle. In this temporal, hedonistic world of the city, time is the devourer of all things. Herein lies the root of Siddhartha's suffering; all that is imbued with the element of time is doomed to death. Also in the "Sansara" sequence, we again experience one of Hesse's close-ups -- in this instance, Siddhartha is reminded of a peculiar dream on a certain evening. Siddhartha, so thoroughly conditioned by his life with the Samanas, is utterly unfulfilled by the superficiality of life with the child-people. He reflects on the elements of time and aging, retires after midnight, and puts in a night of complete personal misery. It is only at dawn that he sleeps at all, at which time he has the dream of which he seems to have been reminded the evening before. It is a highly symbolic dream in which a primal element of nature is the key symbol. He dreams of Kamala's little pet bird, symbolic of Siddhartha's spiritual self which he now believes to be dead. He reflects upon the desert of his soul and resolves that because his life among the child-people is a slow, corrosive death, he must leave the city that night. The sterile life of the city has become a prison for his soul as the cage is a prison for the little songbird.


prompt:
Chapter: BY THE RIVER

Siddhartha walked through the forest, was already far from the city, and
knew nothing but that one thing, that there was no going back for him,
that this life, as he had lived it for many years until now, was over
and done away with, and that he had tasted all of it, sucked everything
out of it until he was disgusted with it.  Dead was the singing bird, he
had dreamt of.  Dead was the bird in his heart.  Deeply, he had been
entangled in Sansara, he had sucked up disgust and death from all sides
into his body, like a sponge sucks up water until it is full.  And full
he was, full of the feeling of been sick of it, full of misery, full of
death, there was nothing left in this world which could have attracted
him, given him joy, given him comfort.

Passionately he wished to know nothing about himself anymore, to have
rest, to be dead.  If there only was a lightning-bolt to strike him
dead!  If there only was a tiger to devour him!  If there only was a
wine, a poison which would numb his senses, bring him forgetfulness and
sleep, and no awakening from that!  Was there still any kind of filth,
he had not soiled himself with, a sin or foolish act he had not
committed, a dreariness of the soul he had not brought upon himself?
Was it still at all possible to be alive?  Was it possible, to breathe
in again and again, to breathe out, to feel hunger, to eat again, to
sleep again, to sleep with a woman again?  Was this cycle not exhausted
and brought to a conclusion for him?

Siddhartha reached the large river in the forest, the same river over
which a long time ago, when he had still been a young man and came from
the town of Gotama, a ferryman had conducted him.  By this river he
stopped, hesitantly he stood at the bank.  Tiredness and hunger had
weakened him, and whatever for should he walk on, wherever to, to which
goal?  No, there were no more goals, there was nothing left but the
deep, painful yearning to shake off this whole desolate dream, to spit
out this stale wine, to put an end to this miserable and shameful life.

A hang bent over the bank of the river, a coconut-tree; Siddhartha
leaned against its trunk with his shoulder, embraced the trunk with one
arm, and looked down into the green water, which ran and ran under him,
looked down and found himself to be entirely filled with the wish to
let go and to drown in these waters.  A frightening emptiness was
reflected back at him by the water, answering to the terrible emptiness
in his soul.  Yes, he had reached the end.  There was nothing left for
him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into
which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of
mockingly laughing gods.  This was the great vomiting he had longed for:
death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated!  Let him be food for
fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten
body, this weakened and abused soul!  Let him be food for fishes and
crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits by the daemons!

With a distorted face, he stared into the water, saw the reflection of
his face and spit at it.  In deep tiredness, he took his arm away from
the trunk of the tree and turned a bit, in order to let himself fall
straight down, in order to finally drown.  With his eyes closed, he
slipped towards death.

Then, out of remote areas of his soul, out of past times of his now
weary life, a sound stirred up.  It was a word, a syllable, which he,
without thinking, with a slurred voice, spoke to himself, the old word
which is the beginning and the end of all prayers of the Brahmans, the
holy "Om", which roughly means "that what is perfect" or "the
completion".  And in the moment when the sound of "Om" touched
Siddhartha's ear, his dormant spirit suddenly woke up and realized the
foolishness of his actions.

Siddhartha was deeply shocked.  So this was how things were with him,
so doomed was he, so much he had lost his way and was forsaken by all
knowledge, that he had been able to seek death, that this wish, this
wish of a child, had been able to grow in him: to find rest by
annihilating his body!  What all agony of these recent times, all
sobering realizations, all desperation had not brought about, this was
brought on by this moment, when the Om entered his consciousness:  he
became aware of himself in his misery and in his error.

Om! he spoke to himself:  Om!  and again he knew about Brahman, knew
about the indestructibility of life, knew about all that is divine,
which he had forgotten.

But this was only a moment, flash.  By the foot of the coconut-tree,
Siddhartha collapsed, struck down by tiredness, mumbling Om, placed his
head on the root of the tree and fell into a deep sleep.

Deep was his sleep and without dreams, for a long time he had not known
such a sleep any more.  When he woke up after many hours, he felt as if
ten years had passed, he heard the water quietly flowing, did not know
where he was and who had brought him here, opened his eyes, saw with
astonishment that there were trees and the sky above him, and he
remembered where he was and how he got here.  But it took him a long
while for this, and the past seemed to him as if it had been covered by
a veil, infinitely distant, infinitely far away, infinitely meaningless.
He only knew that his previous life (in the first moment when he thought
about it, this past life seemed to him like a very old, previous
incarnation, like an early pre-birth of his present self)--that his
previous life had been abandoned by him, that, full of disgust and
wretchedness, he had even intended to throw his life away, but that by a
river, under a coconut-tree, he has come to his senses, the holy word
Om on his lips, that then he had fallen asleep and had now woken up and
was looking at the world as a new man.  Quietly, he spoke the word Om to
himself, speaking which he had fallen asleep, and it seemed to him as if
his entire long sleep had been nothing but a long meditative recitation
of Om, a thinking of Om, a submergence and complete entering into Om,
into the nameless, the perfected.

What a wonderful sleep had this been!  Never before by sleep, he had
been thus refreshed, thus renewed, thus rejuvenated!  Perhaps, he had
really died, had drowned and was reborn in a new body?  But no, he knew
himself, he knew his hand and his feet, knew the place where he lay,
knew this self in his chest, this Siddhartha, the eccentric, the weird
one, but this Siddhartha was nevertheless transformed, was renewed,
was strangely well rested, strangely awake, joyful and curious.

Siddhartha straightened up, then he saw a person sitting opposite to him,
an unknown man, a monk in a yellow robe with a shaven head, sitting in
the position of pondering.  He observed the man, who had neither hair
on his head nor a beard, and he had not observed him for long when he
recognised this monk as Govinda, the friend of his youth, Govinda who
had taken his refuge with the exalted Buddha.  Govinda had aged, he too,
but still his face bore the same features, expressed zeal, faithfulness,
searching, timidness.  But when Govinda now, sensing his gaze, opened
his eyes and looked at him, Siddhartha saw that Govinda did not
recognise him.  Govinda was happy to find him awake; apparently, he had
been sitting here for a long time and been waiting for him to wake up,
though he did not know him.

"I have been sleeping," said Siddhartha.  "However did you get here?"

"You have been sleeping," answered Govinda.  "It is not good to be
sleeping in such places, where snakes often are and the animals of the
forest have their paths.  I, oh sir, am a follower of the exalted
Gotama, the Buddha, the Sakyamuni, and have been on a pilgrimage
together with several of us on this path, when I saw you lying and
sleeping in a place where it is dangerous to sleep.  Therefore, I sought
to wake you up, oh sir, and since I saw that your sleep was very deep,
I stayed behind from my group and sat with you.  And then, so it seems,
I have fallen asleep myself, I who wanted to guard your sleep.  Badly,
I have served you, tiredness has overwhelmed me.  But now that you're
awake, let me go to catch up with my brothers."

"I thank you, Samana, for watching out over my sleep," spoke Siddhartha.
"You're friendly, you followers of the exalted one.  Now you may go
then."

"I'm going, sir.  May you, sir, always be in good health."

"I thank you, Samana."

Govinda made the gesture of a salutation and said:  "Farewell."

"Farewell, Govinda," said Siddhartha.

The monk stopped.

"Permit me to ask, sir, from where do you know my name?"

Now, Siddhartha smiled.

"I know you, oh Govinda, from your father's hut, and from the school
of the Brahmans, and from the offerings, and from our walk to the
Samanas, and from that hour when you took your refuge with the exalted
one in the grove Jetavana."

"You're Siddhartha," Govinda exclaimed loudly.  "Now, I'm recognising
you, and don't comprehend any more how I couldn't recognise you right
away.  Be welcome, Siddhartha, my joy is great, to see you again."

"It also gives me joy, to see you again.  You've been the guard of my
sleep, again I thank you for this, though I wouldn't have required any
guard.  Where are you going to, oh friend?"

"I'm going nowhere.  We monks are always travelling, whenever it is not
the rainy season, we always move from one place to another, live
according to the rules if the teachings passed on to us, accept alms,
move on.  It is always like this.  But you, Siddhartha, where are you
going to?"

Quoth Siddhartha:  "With me too, friend, it is as it is with you.  I'm
going nowhere.  I'm just travelling.  I'm on a pilgrimage."

Govinda spoke:  "You're saying: you're on a pilgrimage, and I believe in
you.  But, forgive me, oh Siddhartha, you do not look like a pilgrim.
You're wearing a rich man's garments, you're wearing the shoes of a
distinguished gentleman, and your hair, with the fragrance of perfume,
is not a pilgrim's hair, not the hair of a Samana."

"Right so, my dear, you have observed well, your keen eyes see
everything.  But I haven't said to you that I was a Samana.  I said:
I'm on a pilgrimage.  And so it is:  I'm on a pilgrimage."

"You're on a pilgrimage," said Govinda.  "But few would go on a
pilgrimage in such clothes, few in such shoes, few with such hair.
Never I have met such a pilgrim, being a pilgrim myself for many years."

"I believe you, my dear Govinda.  But now, today, you've met a pilgrim
just like this, wearing such shoes, such a garment.  Remember, my dear:
Not eternal is the world of appearances, not eternal, anything but
eternal are our garments and the style of our hair, and our hair and
bodies themselves.  I'm wearing a rich man's clothes, you've seen this
quite right.  I'm wearing them, because I have been a rich man, and I'm
wearing my hair like the worldly and lustful people, for I have been
one of them."

"And now, Siddhartha, what are you now?"

"I don't know it, I don't know it just like you.  I'm travelling.  I was
a rich man and am no rich man any more, and what I'll be tomorrow, I
don't know."

"You've lost your riches?"

"I've lost them or they me.  They somehow happened to slip away from me.
The wheel of physical manifestations is turning quickly, Govinda.  Where
is Siddhartha the Brahman?  Where is Siddhartha the Samana?  Where is
Siddhartha the rich man?  Non-eternal things change quickly, Govinda,
you know it."

Govinda looked at the friend of his youth for a long time, with doubt in
his eyes.  After that, he gave him the salutation which one would use
on a gentleman and went on his way.

With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched him leave, he loved him still,
this faithful man, this fearful man.  And how could he not have loved
everybody and everything in this moment, in the glorious hour after his
wonderful sleep, filled with Om!  The enchantment, which had happened
inside of him in his sleep and by means of the Om, was this very thing
that he loved everything, that he was full of joyful love for everything
he saw.  And it was this very thing, so it seemed to him now, which had
been his sickness before, that he was not able to love anybody or
anything.

With a smiling face, Siddhartha watched the leaving monk.  The sleep had
strengthened him much, but hunger gave him much pain, for by now he had
not eaten for two days, and the times were long past when he had been
tough against hunger.  With sadness, and yet also with a smile, he
thought of that time.  In those days, so he remembered, he had boasted
of three things to Kamala, had been able to do three noble and
undefeatable feats: fasting--waiting--thinking.  These had been his
possession, his power and strength, his solid staff; in the busy,
laborious years of his youth, he had learned these three feats, nothing
else.  And now, they had abandoned him, none of them was his any more,
neither fasting, nor waiting, nor thinking.  For the most wretched
things, he had given them up, for what fades most quickly, for sensual
lust, for the good life, for riches!  His life had indeed been strange.
And now, so it seemed, now he had really become a childlike person.

Siddhartha thought about his situation.  Thinking was hard on him, he
did not really feel like it, but he forced himself.

Now, he thought, since all these most easily perishing things have
slipped from me again, now I'm standing here under the sun again just as
I have been standing here a little child, nothing is mine, I have no
abilities, there is nothing I could bring about, I have learned nothing.
How wondrous is this!  Now, that I'm no longer young, that my hair is
already half gray, that my strength is fading, now I'm starting again
at the beginning and as a child!  Again, he had to smile.  Yes, his fate
had been strange!  Things were going downhill with him, and now he was
again facing the world void and naked and stupid.  But he could not feed
sad about this, no, he even felt a great urge to laugh, to laugh about
himself, to laugh about this strange, foolish world.

"Things are going downhill with you!" he said to himself, and laughed
about it, and as he was saying it, he happened to glance at the river,
and he also saw the river going downhill, always moving on downhill,
and singing and being happy through it all.  He liked this well, kindly
he smiled at the river.  Was this not the river in which he had intended
to drown himself, in past times, a hundred years ago, or had he dreamed
this?

Wondrous indeed was my life, so he thought, wondrous detours it has
taken.  As I boy, I had only to do with gods and offerings.  As a youth,
I had only to do with asceticism, with thinking and meditation, was
searching for Brahman, worshipped the eternal in the Atman.  But as a
young man, I followed the penitents, lived in the forest, suffered of
heat and frost, learned to hunger, taught my body to become dead.
Wonderfully, soon afterwards, insight came towards me in the form of the
great Buddha's teachings, I felt the knowledge of the oneness of the
world circling in me like my own blood.  But I also had to leave Buddha
and the great knowledge.  I went and learned the art of love with
Kamala, learned trading with Kamaswami, piled up money, wasted money,
learned to love my stomach, learned to please my senses.  I had to spend
many years losing my spirit, to unlearn thinking again, to forget the
oneness.  Isn't it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour
from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person?  And
yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has
not died.  But what a path has this been!  I had to pass through so much
stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so
much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again
and to be able to start over.  But it was right so, my heart says "Yes"
to it, my eyes smile to it.  I've had to experience despair, I've had to
sink down to the most foolish one of all thoughts, to the thought of
suicide, in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear Om
again, to be able to sleep properly and awake properly again.  I had to
become a fool, to find Atman in me again.  I had to sin, to be able to
live again.  Where else might my path lead me to?  It is foolish, this
path, it moves in loops, perhaps it is going around in a circle.  Let
it go as it likes, I want to take it.

Wonderfully, he felt joy rolling like waves in his chest.

Wherever from, he asked his heart, where from did you get this
happiness?  Might it come from that long, good sleep, which has done me
so good?  Or from the word Om, which I said?  Or from the fact that I
have escaped, that I have completely fled, that I am finally free again
and am standing like a child under the sky?  Oh how good is it to have
fled, to have become free!  How clean and beautiful is the air here, how
good to breathe!  There, where I ran away from, there everything smelled
of ointments, of spices, of wine, of excess, of sloth.  How did I hate
this world of the rich, of those who revel in fine food, of the
gamblers!  How did I hate myself for staying in this terrible world for
so long!  How did I hate myself, have deprive, poisoned, tortured
myself, have made myself old and evil!  No, never again I will, as I
used to like doing so much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha
was wise!  But this one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must
praise, that there is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that
foolish and dreary life!  I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years
of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something,
have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!

Thus he praised himself, found joy in himself, listened curiously to his
stomach, which was rumbling with hunger.  He had now, so he felt, in
these recent times and days, completely tasted and spit out, devoured up
to the point of desperation and death, a piece of suffering, a piece of
misery.  Like this, it was good.  For much longer, he could have stayed
with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let
his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this
soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of
complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he
hung over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself.  That he
had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed
to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive
after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was
why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray.

"It is good," he thought, "to get a taste of everything for oneself,
which one needs to know.  That lust for the world and riches do not
belong to the good things, I have already learned as a child.  I have
known it for a long time, but I have experienced only now.  And now I
know it, don't just know it in my memory, but in my eyes, in my heart,
in my stomach.  Good for me, to know this!"

For a long time, he pondered his transformation, listened to the bird,
as it sang for joy.  Had not this bird died in him, had he not felt its
death?  No, something else from within him had died, something which
already for a long time had yearned to die.  Was it not this what he
used to intend to kill in his ardent years as a penitent?  Was this not
his self, his small, frightened, and proud self, he had wrestled with
for so many years, which had defeated him again and again, which was
back again after every killing, prohibited joy, felt fear?  Was it not
this, which today had finally come to its death, here in the forest, by
this lovely river?  Was it not due to this death, that he was now like
a child, so full of trust, so without fear, so full of joy?

Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in
vain as a Brahman, as a penitent.  Too much knowledge had held him
back, too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rules, to much
self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal!  Full of
arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most,
always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual
one, always the priest or wise one.  Into being a priest, into this
arrogance, into this spirituality, his self had retreated, there it sat
firmly and grew, while he thought he would kill it by fasting and
penance.  Now he saw it and saw that the secret voice had been right,
that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation.
Therefore, he had to go out into the world, lose himself to lust and
power, to woman and money, had to become a merchant, a dice-gambler, a
drinker, and a greedy person, until the priest and Samana in him was
dead.  Therefore, he had to continue bearing these ugly years, bearing
the disgust, the teachings, the pointlessness of a dreary and
wasted life up to the end, up to bitter despair, until Siddhartha the
lustful, Siddhartha the greedy could also die.  He had died, a new
Siddhartha had woken up from the sleep.  He would also grow old, he
would also eventually have to die, mortal was Siddhartha, mortal was
every physical form.  But today he was young, was a child, the new
Siddhartha, and was full of joy.

He thought these thoughts, listened with a smile to his stomach,
listened gratefully to a buzzing bee.  Cheerfully, he looked into the
rushing river, never before he had liked a water so well as this one,
never before he had perceived the voice and the parable of the moving
water thus strongly and beautifully.  It seemed to him, as if the river
had something special to tell him, something he did not know yet, which
was still awaiting him.  In this river, Siddhartha had intended to
drown himself, in it the old, tired, desperate Siddhartha had drowned
today.  But the new Siddhartha felt a deep love for this rushing water,
and decided for himself, not to leave it very soon.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As we embark upon this sequence, we must realize that Siddhartha is now in his forties and that he has spent a little over twenty years in the city. Time rushes by in this novel very much like a current beneath the time close-ups. Plot progression seemingly takes place only when we zoom in on isolated days and nights, yet the story unfolds continually and unrelentingly. The sense of undercurrent becomes even more awesome in the sequences involving Siddhartha at the river with Vasudeva. We learn what Siddhartha is to learn: The river subsumes all time, all creation, all destruction. It is timeless and transcendent. Here, Vasudeva's prophecy of roughly twenty years earlier is fulfilled: Everything does indeed return, even Siddhartha. Vasudeva will conquer his antithesis and we are gradually prepared for Siddhartha's succeeding Vasudeva. Upon Siddhartha's initial return to the river, prior to the actual encounter with Vasudeva, he begins his self-restoration. He hears the Brahmins sacred syllable for the unity of all being -- OM -- as it wells up from his soul and forms a bond with the water. The transcendent OM of the river lulls Siddhartha into a trance-like sleep from which he later awakens, refreshed and face-to-face with Govinda. Siddhartha and the Buddhist monk Govinda have a talk, from which a basic revelation emerges: The cause of Siddhartha's soul sickness is an inability to love. The syllable OM had awakened this revelation within Siddhartha's soul and seeing Govinda has brought it to the surface. Siddhartha then regains his lost innocence and smiles. With Siddhartha's spiritual restoration, already time begins to dissolve, to fall away. Large parts of this sequence are devoted to solitary reflection in which Siddhartha realizes that it is not the bird of his innermost soul that has died, but his conscious, grasping egotistical self. The process of synthesis is an agonizing process, an ordeal of sansara and self-realization, of individuation, from which resolution and equilibrium are to come forth. As Siddhartha reflects on salvation, he is also aware that his inner voice is still there. He is a newly awakened, innocent and childlike Siddhartha, endowed now with the capacity to love the flowing waters of the river. The river is the agent through which Siddhartha will plumb the depths of his consciousness -- a kind of psychoanalysis, as it were.


prompt:
Chapter: THE FERRYMAN

By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha, it is the same which
I have crossed a long time ago on my way to the childlike people, a
friendly ferryman had guided me then, he is the one I want to go to,
starting out from his hut, my path had led me at that time into a new
life, which had now grown old and is dead--my present path, my present
new life, shall also take its start there!

Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green,
into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets.  Bright
pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on
the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it.  With
a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white
ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones.  How did he love this
water, how did it delight him, how grateful was he to it!  In his heart
he heard the voice talking, which was newly awaking, and it told him:
Love this water!  Stay near it!  Learn from it!  Oh yes, he wanted to
learn from it, he wanted to listen to it.  He who would understand this
water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also understand many
other things, many secrets, all secrets.

But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one
touched his soul.  He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran,
and was nevertheless always there, was always at all times the same
and yet new in every moment!  Great be he who would grasp this,
understand this!  He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea
of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices.

Siddhartha rose, the workings of hunger in his body became unbearable.
In a daze he walked on, up the path by the bank, upriver,
listened to the current, listened to the rumbling hunger in his body.

When he reached the ferry, the boat was just ready, and the same
ferryman who had once transported the young Samana across the river,
stood in the boat, Siddhartha recognised him, he had also aged very
much.

"Would you like to ferry me over?" he asked.

The ferryman, being astonished to see such an elegant man walking along
and on foot, took him into his boat and pushed it off the bank.

"It's a beautiful life you have chosen for yourself," the passenger
spoke.  "It must be beautiful to live by this water every day and to
cruise on it."

With a smile, the man at the oar moved from side to side:  "It is
beautiful, sir, it is as you say.  But isn't every life, isn't every
work beautiful?"

"This may be true.  But I envy you for yours."

"Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it.  This is nothing for people
wearing fine clothes."

Siddhartha laughed.  "Once before, I have been looked upon today because
of my clothes, I have been looked upon with distrust.  Wouldn't you,
ferryman, like to accept these clothes, which are a nuisance to me,
from me?  For you must know, I have no money to pay your fare."

"You're joking, sir," the ferryman laughed.

"I'm not joking, friend.  Behold, once before you have ferried me across
this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed.  Thus,
do it today as well, and accept my clothes for it."

"And do you, sir, intent to continue travelling without clothes?"

"Ah, most of all I wouldn't want to continue travelling at all.  Most of
all I would like you, ferryman, to give me an old loincloth and kept me
with you as your assistant, or rather as your trainee, for I'll have to
learn first how to handle the boat."

For a long time, the ferryman looked at the stranger, searching.

"Now I recognise you," he finally said.  "At one time, you've slept in
my hut, this was a long time ago, possibly more than twenty years ago,
and you've been ferried across the river by me, and we parted like good
friends.  Haven't you've been a Samana?  I can't think of your name any
more."

"My name is Siddhartha, and I was a Samana, when you've last seen me."

"So be welcome, Siddhartha.  My name is Vasudeva.  You will, so I hope,
be my guest today as well and sleep in my hut, and tell me, where you're
coming from and why these beautiful clothes are such a nuisance to you."

They had reached the middle of the river, and Vasudeva pushed the oar
with more strength, in order to overcome the current.  He worked calmly,
his eyes fixed in on the front of the boat, with brawny arms.
Siddhartha sat and watched him, and remembered, how once before, on that
last day of his time as a Samana, love for this man had stirred in his
heart.  Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation.  When they had
reached the bank, he helped him to tie the boat to the stakes; after
this, the ferryman asked him to enter the hut, offered him bread and
water, and Siddhartha ate with eager pleasure, and also ate with eager
pleasure of the mango fruits, Vasudeva offered him.

Afterwards, it was almost the time of the sunset, they sat on a log by
the bank, and Siddhartha told the ferryman about where he originally
came from and about his life, as he had seen it before his eyes today,
in that hour of despair.  Until late at night, lasted his tale.

Vasudeva listened with great attention.  Listening carefully, he let
everything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,
all that searching, all joy, all distress.  This was among the
ferryman's virtues one of the greatest:  like only a few, he knew how
to listen.  Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed how
Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how he
did not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,
did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening.  Siddhartha felt,
what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to bury in
his heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.

But in the end of Siddhartha's tale, when he spoke of the tree by the
river, and of his deep fall, of the holy Om, and how he had felt such
a love for the river after his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice
the attention, entirely and completely absorbed by it, with his eyes
closed.

But when Siddhartha fell silent, and a long silence had occurred, then
Vasudeva said:  "It is as I thought.  The river has spoken to you.  It
is your friend as well, it speaks to you as well.  That is good, that is
very good.  Stay with me, Siddhartha, my friend.  I used to have a wife,
her bed was next to mine, but she has died a long time ago, for a long
time, I have lived alone.  Now, you shall live with me, there is space
and food for both."

"I thank you," said Siddhartha, "I thank you and accept.  And I also
thank you for this, Vasudeva, for listening to me so well!  These people
are rare who know how to listen.  And I did not meet a single one who
knew it as well as you did.  I will also learn in this respect from
you."

"You will learn it," spoke Vasudeva, "but not from me.  The river has
taught me to listen, from it you will learn it as well.  It knows
everything, the river, everything can be learned from it.  See, you've
already learned this from the water too, that it is good to strive
downwards, to sink, to seek depth.  The rich and elegant Siddhartha is
becoming an oarsman's servant, the learned Brahman Siddhartha becomes a
ferryman: this has also been told to you by the river.  You'll learn
that other thing from it as well."

Quoth Siddhartha after a long pause:  "What other thing, Vasudeva?"

Vasudeva rose.  "It is late," he said, "let's go to sleep.  I can't
tell you that other thing, oh friend.  You'll learn it, or perhaps you
know it already.  See, I'm no learned man, I have no special skill in
speaking, I also have no special skill in thinking.  All I'm able to do
is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else.  If I was
able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only
a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river.  I have
transported many, thousands; and to all of them, my river has been
nothing but an obstacle on their travels.  They travelled to seek money
and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was
obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly
across that obstacle.  But for some among thousands, a few, four or
five, the river has stopped being an obstacle, they have heard its
voice, they have listened to it, and the river has become sacred to
them, as it has become sacred to me.  Let's rest now, Siddhartha."

Siddhartha stayed with the ferryman and learned to operate the boat, and
when there was nothing to do at the ferry, he worked with Vasudeva in
the rice-field, gathered wood, plucked the fruit off the banana-trees.
He learned to build an oar, and learned to mend the boat, and to weave
baskets, and was joyful because of everything he learned, and the days
and months passed quickly.  But more than Vasudeva could teach him, he
was taught by the river.  Incessantly, he learned from it.  Most of all,
he learned from it to listen, to pay close attention with a quiet heart,
with a waiting, opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without
judgement, without an opinion.

In a friendly manner, he lived side by side with Vasudeva, and
occasionally they exchanged some words, few and at length thought about
words.  Vasudeva was no friend of words; rarely, Siddhartha succeeded
in persuading him to speak.

"Did you," so he asked him at one time, "did you too learn that secret
from the river: that there is no time?"

Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile.

"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke.  "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that
the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the
waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains,
everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not
the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?"

"This it is," said Siddhartha.  "And when I had learned it, I looked at
my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only
separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a
shadow, not by something real.  Also, Siddhartha's previous births were
no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future.  Nothing
was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is
present."

Siddhartha spoke with ecstasy; deeply, this enlightenment had delighted
him.  Oh, was not all suffering time, were not all forms of tormenting
oneself and being afraid time, was not everything hard, everything
hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as one had overcome time,
as soon as time would have been put out of existence by one's thoughts?
In ecstatic delight, he had spoken, but Vasudeva smiled at him brightly
and nodded in confirmation; silently he nodded, brushed his hand over
Siddhartha's shoulder, turned back to his work.

And once again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy
season and made a powerful noise, then said Siddhartha:  "Isn't it so,
oh friend, the river has many voices, very many voices?  Hasn't it the
voice of a king, and of a warrior, and of a bull, and of a bird of the
night, and of a woman giving birth, and of a sighing man, and a thousand
other voices more?"

"So it is," Vasudeva nodded, "all voices of the creatures are in its
voice."

"And do you know," Siddhartha continued, "what word it speaks, when you
succeed in hearing all of its ten thousand voices at once?"

Happily, Vasudeva's face was smiling, he bent over to Siddhartha and
spoke the holy Om into his ear.  And this had been the very thing which
Siddhartha had also been hearing.

And time after time, his smile became more similar to the ferryman's,
became almost just as bright, almost just as throughly glowing with
bliss, just as shining out of thousand small wrinkles, just as alike to
a child's, just as alike to an old man's.  Many travellers, seeing the
two ferrymen, thought they were brothers.  Often, they sat in the
evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened
to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the
voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape.  And it
happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river,
thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before
yesterday, of one of their travellers, the face and fate of whom had
occupied their thoughts, of death, of their childhood, and that they
both in the same moment, when the river had been saying something good
to them, looked at each other, both thinking precisely the same thing,
both delighted about the same answer to the same question.

There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was
transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt.  It happened
occasionally that a traveller, after having looked at the face of one of
the ferrymen, started to tell the story of his life, told about pains,
confessed evil things, asked for comfort and advice.  It happened
occasionally that someone asked for permission to stay for a night with
them to listen to the river.  It also happened that curious people came,
who had been told that there were two wise men, or sorcerers, or holy
men living by that ferry.  The curious people asked many questions, but
they got no answers, and they found neither sorcerers nor wise men, they
only found two friendly little old men, who seemed to be mute and to
have become a bit strange and gaga.  And the curious people laughed and
were discussing how foolishly and gullibly the common people were
spreading such empty rumours.

The years passed by, and nobody counted them.  Then, at one time, monks
came by on a pilgrimage, followers of Gotama, the Buddha, who were
asking to be ferried across the river, and by them the ferrymen were
told that they were most hurriedly walking back to their great
teacher, for the news had spread the exalted one was deadly sick and
would soon die his last human death, in order to become one with the
salvation.  It was not long, until a new flock of monks came along on
their pilgrimage, and another one, and the monks as well as most of the
other travellers and people walking through the land spoke of nothing
else than of Gotama and his impending death.  And as people are flocking
from everywhere and from all sides, when they are going to war or to the
coronation of a king, and are gathering like ants in droves, thus they
flocked, like being drawn on by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha
was awaiting his death, where the huge event was to take place and the
great perfected one of an era was to become one with the glory.

Often, Siddhartha thought in those days of the dying wise man, the
great teacher, whose voice had admonished nations and had awoken
hundreds of thousands, whose voice he had also once heard, whose holy
face he had also once seen with respect.  Kindly, he thought of him, saw
his path to perfection before his eyes, and remembered with a smile
those words which he had once, as a young man, said to him, the exalted
one.  They had been, so it seemed to him, proud and precocious words;
with a smile, he remembered them.  For a long time he knew that there
was nothing standing between Gotama and him any more, though he was
still unable to accept his teachings.  No, there was no teaching a
truly searching person, someone who truly wanted to find, could accept.
But he who had found, he could approve of any teachings, every path,
every goal, there was nothing standing between him and all the other
thousand any more who lived in that what is eternal, who breathed what
is divine.

On one of these days, when so many went on a pilgrimage to the dying
Buddha, Kamala also went to him, who used to be the most beautiful of
the courtesans.  A long time ago, she had retired from her previous
life, had given her garden to the monks of Gotama as a gift, had taken
her refuge in the teachings, was among the friends and benefactors of
the pilgrims.  Together with Siddhartha the boy, her son, she had gone
on her way due to the news of the near death of Gotama, in simple
clothes, on foot.  With her little son, she was travelling by the river;
but the boy had soon grown tired, desired to go back home, desired to
rest, desired to eat, became disobedient and started whining.

Kamala often had to take a rest with him, he was accustomed to having
his way against her, she had to feed him, had to comfort him, had to
scold him.  He did not comprehend why he had to go on this exhausting
and sad pilgrimage with his mother, to an unknown place, to a stranger,
who was holy and about to die.  So what if he died, how did this concern
the boy?

The pilgrims were getting close to Vasudeva's ferry, when little
Siddhartha once again forced his mother to rest.  She, Kamala herself,
had also become tired, and while the boy was chewing a banana, she
crouched down on the ground, closed her eyes a bit, and rested.  But
suddenly, she uttered a wailing scream, the boy looked at her in fear
and saw her face having grown pale from horror; and from under her
dress, a small, black snake fled, by which Kamala had been bitten.

Hurriedly, they now both ran along the path, in order to reach people,
and got near to the ferry, there Kamala collapsed, and was not able to
go any further.  But the boy started crying miserably, only interrupting
it to kiss and hug his mother, and she also joined his loud screams for
help, until the sound reached Vasudeva's ears, who stood at the ferry.
Quickly, he came walking, took the woman on his arms, carried her into
the boat, the boy ran along, and soon they all reached the hut, were
Siddhartha stood by the stove and was just lighting the fire.  He looked
up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded him of
something, like a warning to remember something he had forgotten.  Then
he saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognised, though she lay unconscious
in the ferryman's arms, and now he knew that it was his own son, whose
face had been such a warning reminder to him, and the heart stirred in
his chest.

Kamala's wound was washed, but had already turned black and her body was
swollen, she was made to drink a healing potion.  Her consciousness
returned, she lay on Siddhartha's bed in the hut and bent over her stood
Siddhartha, who used to love her so much.  It seemed like a dream to
her; with a smile, she looked at her friend's face; just slowly she,
realized her situation, remembered the bite, called timidly for the boy.

"He's with you, don't worry," said Siddhartha.

Kamala looked into his eyes.  She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralysed
by the poison.  "You've become old, my dear," she said, "you've become
gray.  But you are like the young Samana, who at one time came without
clothes, with dusty feet, to me into the garden.  You are much more like
him, than you were like him at that time when you had left me and
Kamaswami.  In the eyes, you're like him, Siddhartha.  Alas, I have also
grown old, old--could you still recognise me?"

Siddhartha smiled:  "Instantly, I recognised you, Kamala, my dear."

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

Her eyes became confused and fell shut.  The boy wept, Siddhartha took
him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair, and at the sight of
the child's face, a Brahman prayer came to his mind, which he had
learned a long time ago, when he had been a little boy himself.  Slowly,
with a singing voice, he started to speak; from his past and childhood,
the words came flowing to him.  And with that singsong, the boy became
calm, was only now and then uttering a sob and fell asleep.  Siddhartha
placed him on Vasudeva's bed.  Vasudeva stood by the stove and cooked
rice.  Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with a smile.

"She'll die," Siddhartha said quietly.

Vasudeva nodded; over his friendly face ran the light of the stove's
fire.

Once again, Kamala returned to consciousness.  Pain distorted her face,
Siddhartha's eyes read the suffering on her mouth, on her pale cheeks.
Quietly, he read it, attentively, waiting, his mind becoming one with
her suffering.  Kamala felt it, her gaze sought his eyes.

Looking at him, she said:  "Now I see that your eyes have changed as
well.  They've become completely different.  By what do I still
recognise that you're Siddhartha?  It's you, and it's not you."

Siddhartha said nothing, quietly his eyes looked at hers.

"You have achieved it?" she asked.  "You have found peace?"

He smiled and placed his hand on hers.

"I'm seeing it," she said, "I'm seeing it.  I too will find peace."

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

Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes.  She thought about her
pilgrimage to Gotama, which wanted to take, in order to see the face of
the perfected one, to breathe his peace, and she thought that she had
now found him in his place, and that it was good, just as good, as if
she had seen the other one.  She wanted to tell this to him, but the
tongue no longer obeyed her will.  Without speaking, she looked at him,
and he saw the life fading from her eyes.  When the final pain filled
her eyes and made them grow dim, when the final shiver ran through her
limbs, his finger closed her eyelids.

For a long time, he sat and looked at her peacefully dead face.  For a
long time, he observed her mouth, her old, tired mouth, with those lips,
which had become thin, and he remembered, that he used to, in the spring
of his years, compare this mouth with a freshly cracked fig.  For a long
time, he sat, read in the pale face, in the tired wrinkles, filled
himself with this sight, saw his own face lying in the same manner,
just as white, just as quenched out, and saw at the same time his face
and hers being young, with red lips, with fiery eyes, and the feeling of
this both being present and at the same time real, the feeling of
eternity, completely filled every aspect of his being.  Deeply he felt,
more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility of
every life, the eternity of every moment.

When he rose, Vasudeva had prepared rice for him.  But Siddhartha did
not eat.  In the stable, where their goat stood, the two old men
prepared beds of straw for themselves, and Vasudeva lay himself down
to sleep.  But Siddhartha went outside and sat this night before the
hut, listening to the river, surrounded by the past, touched and
encircled by all times of his life at the same time.  But occasionally,
he rose, stepped to the door of the hut and listened, whether the boy
was sleeping.

Early in the morning, even before the sun could be seen, Vasudeva came
out of the stable and walked over to his friend.

"You haven't slept," he said.

"No, Vasudeva.  I sat here, I was listening to the river.  A lot it has
told me, deeply it has filled me with the healing thought, with the
thought of oneness."

"You've experienced suffering, Siddhartha, but I see: no sadness has
entered your heart."

"No, my dear, how should I be sad?  I, who have been rich and happy,
have become even richer and happier now.  My son has been given to me."

"Your son shall be welcome to me as well.  But now, Siddhartha, let's
get to work, there is much to be done.  Kamala has died on the same bed,
on which my wife had died a long time ago.  Let us also build Kamala's
funeral pile on the same hill on which I had then built my wife's
funeral pile."

While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral pile.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Vasudeva, the quiet ferryman whose name is derived from one of the names of Krishna, and which basically means "he in whom all things abide and who abides in all," is an unforgettable character. In Siddhartha's decision to stay by the river, he recalls the ferryman and resolves that his new life will begin again with the ferryman. Siddhartha's inner synthesis will be effected through a resolution of permanence and transience -- and it is Vasudeva, as well as Siddhartha's own inner voice, which affirms that the river will prove to be the agent of Siddhartha's fulfillment. As Siddhartha requests that Vasudeva take him across, Siddhartha is completely absorbed by the tranquil human presence of the ferryman, as earlier he had been by that of Gotama Buddha. The key to learning from the river, according to Vasudeva, is listening. We will discover, however, that before Vasudeva's knowledge can be of any significance to Siddhartha, it must be tempered with love. What Siddhartha learns from Vasudeva is an affirmation of life and a sense of harmony with nature. After Vasudeva tells Siddhartha that the river has spoken to him, he tells Siddhartha that he will learn two things from the river. Already he has learned one of these: to strive downwards like a stone. Vasudeva cannot tell Siddhartha what the other thing to be learned will be, for it is a form of intuitive experience which defies verbalization. Vasudeva then tells Siddhartha about the job of ferryman, his task being to take people across the river and to give them directions once they get across. Symbolically, his task is to show men the way to salvation. He can only show the way, however. Men must attain salvation themselves. The conversation continues through the evening and into the night and, at its end, the narrative lapses into indefinite time. One of the outstanding conversations of the entire novel occurs when Siddhartha asks Vasudeva about time. The ferryman tells him of the transcendent timelessness of the river, which brings Siddhartha to the realization that life is also a river and that past, present, and future are all one. Childhood, adulthood, and old age are separated only by shadows, not by reality. This, basically, is Siddhartha's Nirvana. This mystical union with simultaneity, with Brahma, forms the nucleus of the book. The conversation then culminates with Siddhartha's equating time with suffering, another basic idea of the book. We are reminded that the river embodies all creation, all layers of consciousness: It is the collective unconscious of man's ancestral soul in its ten thousand voices, and the eternal OM brings them to the surface of our consciousness simultaneously. The two ferrymen, Vasudeva and Siddhartha, become as brothers, united by the sacred river. Years pass and we come to learn that Gotama Buddha is on the threshold of eternal salvation and his Buddhist followers are gathering to their teacher for the last time. Siddhartha recalls the living presence of the Buddha which has awed him so much, and he feels a strong bond with him. The montage narrative again zooms into a definite time sequence as we observe the day when Kamala and her eleven-year-old son come to see Buddha. The observant reader somehow knows now that Kamala has been attracted to the life of the Buddhist monks, for she made a direct inquiry about Gotama when Siddhartha was taking leave of the city. The father-son motif is soon to be re-established, and we are to realize that the boy is one of the child-people. We are, however, given little hints that this boy will eventually seek his own goals despite his current recalcitrance. The most substantial hint lies in the fact that the boy is called "little Siddhartha." After the events of the day, Siddhartha has another of his visions of the mystical transcendence of the river and of its transcendence of time, experiencing again the simultaneity and unity of all life. The next morning, as preparations are made for Kamala's pyre, Siddhartha's hopes are directed toward his son.


prompt:
Chapter: THE SON

Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mother's funeral; gloomy
and shy, he had listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and
welcomed him at his place in Vasudeva's hut.  Pale, he sat for many
days by the hill of the dead, did not want to eat, gave no open look,
did not open his heart, met his fate with resistance and denial.

Siddhartha spared him and let him do as he pleased, he honoured his
mourning.  Siddhartha understood that his son did not know him, that
he could not love him like a father.  Slowly, he also saw and understood
that the eleven-year-old was a pampered boy, a mother's boy, and that he
had grown up in the habits of rich people, accustomed to finer food, to
a soft bed, accustomed to giving orders to servants.  Siddhartha
understood that the mourning, pampered child could not suddenly and
willingly be content with a life among strangers and in poverty.  He did
not force him, he did many a chore for him, always picked the best piece
of the meal for him.  Slowly, he hoped to win him over, by friendly
patience.

Rich and happy, he had called himself, when the boy had come to him.
Since time had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a
stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and
stubbornly disobedient heart, did not want to do any work, did not pay
his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudeva's fruit-trees, then
Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him
happiness and peace, but suffering and worry.  But he loved him, and he
preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy
without the boy.  Since young Siddhartha was in the hut, the old men had
split the work.  Vasudeva had again taken on the job of the ferryman all
by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did 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, to perhaps reciprocate it.  For
long months, Vasudeva waited, watching, waited and said nothing.  One
day, when Siddhartha the younger had once again tormented his father
very much with spite and an unsteadiness in his wishes and had broken
both of his rice-bowls, Vasudeva took in the evening his friend aside
and talked to him.

"Pardon me." he said, "from a friendly heart, I'm talking to you.  I'm
seeing that you are tormenting yourself, I'm seeing that you're in grief.
Your son, my dear, is worrying you, and he is also worrying me.  That
young bird is accustomed to a different life, to a different nest.  He
has not, like you, ran away from riches and the city, being disgusted
and fed up with it; against his will, he had to leave all this behind.
I asked the river, oh friend, many times I have asked it.  But the river
laughs, it laughs at me, it laughs at you and me, and is shaking with
laughter at our foolishness.  Water wants to join water, youth wants to
join youth, your son is not in the place where he can prosper.  You too
should ask the river; you too should listen to it!"

Troubled, Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles
of which there was incessant cheerfulness.

"How could I part with him?" he said quietly, ashamed.  "Give me some
more time, my dear!  See, I'm fighting for him, I'm seeking to win his
heart, with love and with friendly patience I intent to capture it.
One day, the river shall also talk to him, he also is called upon."

Vasudeva's smile flourished more warmly.  "Oh yes, he too is called
upon, he too is of the eternal life.  But do we, you and me, know what
he is called upon to do, what path to take, what actions to perform,
what pain to endure?  Not a small one, his pain will be; after all, his
heart is proud and hard, people like this have to suffer a lot, err a
lot, do much injustice, burden themselves with much sin.  Tell me, my
dear: you're not taking control of your son's upbringing?  You don't
force him?  You don't beat him?  You don't punish him?"

"No, Vasudeva, I don't do anything of this."

"I knew it.  You don't force him, don't beat him, don't give him orders,
because you know that 'soft' is stronger than 'hard', Water stronger
than rocks, love stronger than force.  Very good, I praise you.  But
aren't you mistaken in thinking that you wouldn't force him, wouldn't
punish him?  Don't you shackle him with your love?  Don't you make him
feel inferior every day, and don't you make it even harder on him with
your kindness and patience?  Don't you force him, the arrogant and
pampered boy, to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters, to whom even
rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be his, whose hearts are old
and quiet and beats in a different pace than his?  Isn't forced, isn't
he punished by all this?"

Troubled, Siddhartha looked to the ground.  Quietly, he asked:  "What
do you think should I do?"

Quoth Vasudeva:  "Bring him into the city, bring him into his mother's
house, there'll still be servants around, give him to them.  And when
there aren't any around any more, bring him to a teacher, not for the
teachings' sake, but so that he shall be among other boys, and among
girls, and in the world which is his own.  Have you never thought of
this?"

"You're seeing into my heart," Siddhartha spoke sadly.  "Often, I have
thought of this.  But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart
anyhow, into this world?  Won't he become exuberant, won't he lose
himself to pleasure and power, won't he repeat all of his father's
mistakes, won't he perhaps get entirely lost in Sansara?"

Brightly, the ferryman's smile lit up; softly, he touched Siddhartha's
arm and said:  "Ask the river about it, my friend!  Hear it laugh about
it!  Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts
in order to spare your son from committing them too?  And could you in
any way protect your son from Sansara?  How could you?  By means of
teachings, prayer, admonition?  My dear, have you entirely forgotten
that story, that story containing so many lessons, that story about
Siddhartha, a Brahman's son, which you once told me here on this very
spot?  Who has kept the Samana Siddhartha safe from Sansara, from sin,
from greed, from foolishness?  Were his father's religious devotion, his
teachers warnings, his own knowledge, his own search able to keep him
safe?  Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from
living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from
burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for
himself, from finding his path for himself?  Would you think, my dear,
anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path?  That perhaps
your little son would be spared, because you love him, because you would
like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment?  But even
if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the
slightest part of his destiny upon yourself."

Never before, Vasudeva had spoken so many words.  Kindly, Siddhartha
thanked him, went troubled into the hut, could not sleep for a long
time.  Vasudeva had told him nothing, he had not already thought and
known for himself.  But this was a knowledge he could not act upon,
stronger than the knowledge was his love for the boy, stronger was his
tenderness, his fear to lose him.  Had he ever lost his heart so much
to something, had he ever loved any person thus, thus blindly, thus
sufferingly, thus unsuccessfully, and yet thus happily?

Siddhartha could not heed his friend's advice, he could not give up the
boy.  He let the boy give him orders, he let him disregard him.  He
said nothing and waited; daily, he began the mute struggle of
friendliness, the silent war of patience.  Vasudeva also said nothing
and waited, friendly, knowing, patient.  They were both masters of
patience.

At one time, when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala,
Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time
ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him.  "You cannot
love," she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and had compared
himself with a star, while comparing the childlike people with falling
leaves, and nevertheless he had also sensed an accusation in that line.
Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to
another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love
of another person; never he had been able to do this, and this was, as
it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him
apart from the childlike people.  But now, since his son was here, now
he, Siddhartha, had also become completely a childlike person, suffering
for the sake of another person, loving another person, lost to a love,
having become a fool on account of love.  Now he too felt, late, once
in his lifetime, this strongest and strangest of all passions, suffered
from it, suffered miserably, and was nevertheless in bliss, was
nevertheless renewed in one respect, enriched by one thing.

He did sense very well that this love, this blind love for his son, was
a passion, something very human, that it was Sansara, a murky source,
dark waters.  Nevertheless, he felt at the same time, it was not
worthless, it was necessary, came from the essence of his own being.
This pleasure also had to be atoned for, this pain also had to be
endured, these foolish acts also had to be committed.

Through all this, the son let him commit his foolish acts, let him
court for his affection, let him humiliate himself every day by giving
in to his moods.  This father had nothing which would have delighted
him and nothing which he would have feared.  He was a good man, this
father, a good, kind, soft man, perhaps a very devout man, perhaps a
saint, all these there no attributes which could win the boy over.  He
was bored by this father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable
hut of his, he was bored by him, and for him to answer every naughtiness
with a smile, every insult with friendliness, every viciousness with
kindness, this very thing was the hated trick of this old sneak.  Much
more the boy would have liked it if he had been threatened by him, if he
had been abused by him.

A day came, when what young Siddhartha had on his mind came bursting
forth, and he openly turned against his father.  The latter had given
him a task, he had told him to gather brushwood.  But the boy did not
leave the hut, in stubborn disobedience and rage he stayed where he was,
thumped on the ground with his feet, clenched his fists, and screamed in
a powerful outburst his hatred and contempt into his father's face.

"Get the brushwood for yourself!" he shouted foaming at the mouth, "I'm
not your servant.  I do know, that you won't hit me, you don't dare; I
do know, that you constantly want to punish me and put me down with
your religious devotion and your indulgence.  You want me to become like
you, just as devout, just as soft, just as wise!  But I, listen up, just
to make you suffer, I rather want to become a highway-robber and
murderer, and go to hell, than to become like you!  I hate you, you're
not my father, and if you've ten times been my mother's fornicator!"

Rage and grief boiled over in him, foamed at the father in a hundred
savage and evil words.  Then the boy ran away and only returned late at
night.

But the next morning, he had disappeared.  What had also disappeared was
a small basket, woven out of bast of two colours, in which the ferrymen
kept those copper and silver coins which they received as a fare.
The boat had also disappeared, Siddhartha saw it lying by the opposite
bank.  The boy had ran away.

"I must follow him," said Siddhartha, who had been shivering with grief
since those ranting speeches, the boy had made yesterday.  "A child
can't go through the forest all alone.  He'll perish.  We must build a
raft, Vasudeva, to get over the water."

"We will build a raft," said Vasudeva, "to get our boat back, which the
boy has taken away.  But him, you shall let run along, my friend, he is
no child any more, he knows how to get around.  He's looking for the
path to the city, and he is right, don't forget that.  He's doing what
you've failed to do yourself.  He's taking care of himself, he's taking
his course.  Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering
a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for
yourself."

Siddhartha did not answer.  He already held the axe in his hands and
began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him to tie the
canes together with ropes of grass.  Then they crossed over, drifted
far off their course, pulled the raft upriver on the opposite bank.

"Why did you take the axe along?" asked Siddhartha.

Vasudeva said:  "It might have been possible that the oar of our boat
got lost."

But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking.  He thought, the boy
would have thrown away or broken the oar in order to get even and in
order to keep them from following him.  And in fact, there was no oar
left in the boat.  Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked
at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say:  "Don't you see what
your son is trying to tell you?  Don't you see that he doesn't want to
be followed?"  But he did not say this in words.  He started making a
new oar.  But Siddhartha bid his farewell, to look for the run-away.
Vasudeva did not stop him.

When Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long
time, the thought occurred to him that his search was useless.  Either,
so he thought, the boy was far ahead and had already reached the city,
or, if he should still be on his way, he would conceal himself from him,
the pursuer.  As he continued thinking, he also found that he, on his
part, was not worried for his son, that he knew deep inside that he had
neither perished nor was in any danger in the forest.  Nevertheless, he
ran without stopping, no longer to save him, just to satisfy his desire,
just to perhaps see him one more time.  And he ran up to just outside of
the city.

When, near the city, he reached a wide road, he stopped, by the entrance
of the beautiful pleasure-garden, which used to belong to Kamala, where
he had seen her for the first time in her sedan-chair.  The past rose
up in his soul, again he saw himself standing there, young, a bearded,
naked Samana, the hair full of dust.  For a long time, Siddhartha stood
there and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in
yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees.

For a long time, he stood there, pondering, seeing images, listening to
the story of his life.  For a long time, he stood there, looked at the
monks, saw young Siddhartha in their place, saw young Kamala walking
among the high trees.  Clearly, he saw himself being served food and
drink by Kamala, receiving his first kiss from her, looking proudly and
disdainfully back on his Brahmanism, beginning proudly and full of
desire his worldly life.  He saw Kamaswami, saw the servants, the
orgies, the gamblers with the dice, the musicians, saw Kamala's
song-bird in the cage, lived through all this once again, breathed
Sansara, was once again old and tired, felt once again disgust, felt
once again the wish to annihilate himself, was once again healed by the
holy Om.

After having been standing by the gate of the garden for a long time,
Siddhartha realised that his desire was foolish, which had made him go
up to this place, that he could not help his son, that he was not
allowed to cling him.  Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his
heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had
not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to
become a blossom and had to shine.

That this wound did not blossom yet, did not shine yet, at this hour,
made him sad.  Instead of the desired goal, which had drawn him here
following the runaway son, there was now emptiness.  Sadly, he sat down,
felt something dying in his heart, experienced emptiness, saw no joy any
more, no goal.  He sat lost in thought and waited.  This he had learned
by the river, this one thing: waiting, having patience, listening
attentively.  And he sat and listened, in the dust of the road, listened
to his heart, beating tiredly and sadly, waited for a voice.  Many an
hour he crouched, listening, saw no images any more, fell into
emptiness, let himself fall, without seeing a path.  And when he felt
the wound burning, he silently spoke the Om, filled himself with Om.
The monks in the garden saw him, and since he crouched for many hours,
and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and
placed two bananas in front of him.  The old man did not see him.

From this petrified state, he was awoken by a hand touching his
shoulder.  Instantly, he recognised this touch, this tender, bashful
touch, and regained his senses.  He rose and greeted Vasudeva, who had
followed him.  And when he looked into Vasudeva's friendly face, into
the small wrinkles, which were as if they were filled with nothing but
his smile, into the happy eyes, then he smiled too.  Now he saw the
bananas lying in front of him, picked them up, gave one to the ferryman,
ate the other one himself.  After this, he silently went back into the
forest with Vasudeva, returned home to the ferry.  Neither one talked
about what had happened today, neither one mentioned the boy's name,
neither one spoke about him running away, neither one spoke about the
wound.  In the hut, Siddhartha lay down on his bed, and when after a
while Vasudeva came to him, to offer him a bowl of coconut-milk, he
already found him asleep.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As this sequence begins, the action occurs on no particular day or any particular time of day; we are simply given a report of the father-son relationship. The sadness of the events which follow are sublimely tempered by the wisdom and kindness of the old Vasudeva. Despite Siddhartha's efforts to win the love and respect of his son, the son is more drawn to the enticements of the city, the milieu of his mother, than to the spiritual leanings of his stranger-father. Vasudeva reminds Siddhartha that, like his father, the boy will have to rebel, that he too must run away and learn things for himself. Earlier the ferryman told Siddhartha that he would soon he learning something that he could not verbalize, and Siddhartha now realizes what it is as he looks into his son's face. The child's face evokes the memory of Kamala when she and Siddhartha told each other that they were incapable of love, and that it was this that separated them from ordinary people. Because of the anguish of this memory, Siddhartha realizes that he not only loves the river, but that -- like ordinary men -- he loves another person -- the essence of Kamala in little Siddhartha. The time comes when Siddhartha must accept little Siddhartha's departure. Little Siddhartha runs away bitterly from his father, returns late in the evening, and departs across the symbolic river with Siddhartha and Vasundeva following -- not, as Vasudeva warns, to catch him, but to observe him and to retrieve the boat. Vasudeva's laughter concerning the boy's departure is not the cruel laugh of ridicule, but a sublime laugh embodying Vasudeva's knowledge of the boy's way -- that is, his destiny, meaning that all things return. Siddhartha wants to spare his son from the grueling ordeal of sansara, but Vasudeva knows that this is impossible. Siddhartha has a sudden visionary glimpse of the city and sees that Kamala converted her pleasure garden into a refuge for Buddhist monks. His mind returns to the early days when he first saw the rich Kamala from outside, when he was a poor Samana; recalling the processes of life and death, he remembers the syllable OM, symbolized by the caged songbird. The sense of loss because of his son's abrupt departure lingers in Siddhartha like a deep wound. For the first time, Siddhartha has direct, firsthand experience with the pain of love.