Siddhartha (8 page)

“And if I hadn’t been willing?”

“You
were
willing. You see, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it hurries by the swiftest possible path to the bottom. It is like this when Siddhartha has a goal, a resolve. Siddhartha does nothing—he waits, he thinks, he fasts—but he passes through the things of this world like a stone through water, without doing anything, without moving; he is drawn and lets himself fall. His goal draws him to it, for he allows nothing into his soul that might conflict with this goal. This is what Siddhartha learned among the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and think is performed by demons.
Nothing is performed by demons; there are no demons. Anyone can perform magic. Anyone can reach his goals if he can think, if he can wait, if he can fast.”

Kamala listened to him. She loved his voice, she loved the way his eyes flashed. “Perhaps it is just as you say, friend,” she said softly. “But perhaps it is also that Siddhartha is a handsome man, his appearance is pleasing to women, and for this reason good luck comes to him.”

With a kiss, Siddhartha took leave of her. “May it be so, my teacher. May my appearance always please you; may good luck always come from you to me!”

Siddhartha went to see the merchant Kamaswami and was shown into a mansion; servants led him between precious tapestries to a chamber, where he waited for the master of the house to appear.

Kamaswami entered, a quick, agile man with heavily graying hair, very clever, cautious eyes, and a covetous mouth. Master and guest exchanged a friendly greeting.

“They tell me,” the merchant began, “that you are a Brahmin, a learned man, but that you wish to enter the service of a merchant. Has hardship befallen you, Brahmin, to make you seek such a post?”

“No,” Siddhartha said, “hardship has not befallen me. Indeed, I have never suffered hardship. Know that I have come to you from the Samanas, among whom I lived for a long time.”

“If you come from the Samanas, how could you not be suffering hardship? Are not the Samanas utterly without possessions?”

“Possessions I have none,” Siddhartha said, “if this is what you mean. Certainly I have no possessions. But I lack possessions of my own free will, so this is not a hardship.”

“But what will you live on if you have nothing?”

“Never before, sir, have I occupied myself with this question. I have been without possessions for a good three years now and never found myself wondering what to live on.”

“Then you lived off the possessions of others.”

“No doubt this is so. A merchant too lives off the wealth of others.”

“Well put. But he does not take from others without giving in return; he gives his goods in exchange.”

“This would indeed appear to be true. Each person gives; each person takes. Such is life.”

“But with your permission: If you have no possessions, what can you give?”

“Each person gives what he has. The warrior gives strength, the merchant gives his goods, the teacher his doctrine, the farmer rice, the fisherman fish.”

“Most certainly. And so what is it you have to give? What have you learned? What are your abilities?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

“Is that all?”

“I believe it is.”

“And what use are these things? Fasting, for instance—what purpose does it serve?”

“It is most excellent, sir. If a person has nothing to eat, then fasting is the most sensible thing he can do. If, for example, Siddhartha had not learned to fast, he would be compelled to take up some service or other straightaway, be it with you or wherever else, for his hunger would force him to do so. But Siddhartha can wait calmly. He knows no impatience, no urgent hardship; hunger can besiege him for a long time and just make him laugh. This, sir, is the usefulness of fasting.”

“You are right, Samana. Wait for a moment.”

Kamaswami went out and returned with a scroll, which he handed to his guest. “Can you read this?”

Siddhartha looked at the scroll, on which a bill of sale was written, and began to read its contents aloud.

“Splendid,” Kamaswami said. “And would you mind writing something on this paper for me?”

He gave him paper and a stylus, and Siddhartha wrote and gave the paper back to him. Kamaswami read:
“Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.”

“You write admirably,” the merchant said in praise. “We still have many things to discuss together. For today I would ask that you be my guest and take up residence in my home.”

Siddhartha thanked him and accepted, and now he was living in the home of the tradesman. Clothing was brought to him, and shoes, and a servant prepared a bath for him daily. Twice a day an opulent meal was served, but Siddhartha ate only once a day, and he neither ate meat nor drank wine. Kamaswami told him of his trading, showed him goods and storerooms, showed him his accounts, and Siddhartha learned many new things. He listened much and spoke little and, mindful of Kamala’s words, he never behaved subserviently toward the merchant. Instead, he compelled him to treat him as an equal: indeed, as more than an equal. Kamaswami pursued his business with solicitousness, even with passion, but Siddhartha saw it all as a game whose rules he was striving to learn but whose substance did not touch his heart.

Not long after arriving in Kamaswami’s house, Siddhartha began to take part in his business dealings. Daily, however, at the hour chosen by her, he visited beautiful Kamala dressed in attractive clothes and fine shoes, and soon he was also bringing her presents. Her clever red mouth taught him many things. Her delicate, nimble hand taught him many things. He—who in matters of love was still a boy and tended to hurl himself blindly and insatiably into pleasure as into an abyss—was now being instructed methodically in this doctrine: that one cannot receive pleasure without giving pleasure; that
every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every inch of the body had its secret; and that awakening this secret brought happiness to the one who held this knowledge. She taught him that lovers may not part after celebrating their love until each has admired the other, each been as much victor as vanquished, so that neither might be beset by surfeit or tedium or an uneasy sense of having taken advantage or been taken advantage of. He passed glorious hours in the company of this beautiful, intelligent artist; he became her pupil, her lover, her friend. The value and meaning of the life he now was leading lay here with Kamala, not in the business dealings of Kamaswami.

The merchant entrusted him with the composition of important letters and contracts and gradually became accustomed to discussing all matters of importance with him. He soon saw that while Siddhartha knew little about rice and wool, shipping and trade, he had good instincts and surpassed him, the merchant, in coolheadedness and composure, in the art of listening to and sounding out other people. “This Brahmin,” he said to a friend, “is not a proper merchant and will never be one; never is his heart passionately engaged in our transactions. But he has the secret of those to whom success comes of its own accord, be it that he was born under a lucky star, be it magic, be it something he learned among the Samanas. He seems only to be playing at doing business. Never do the transactions have any real effect on him; never are they his master; never does he fear failure or worry over a loss.”

The friend advised the tradesman, “Give him a third of the profits in the transactions he arranges for you, but let him also bear the same share of the losses when there is a loss. This will make him more assiduous.”

Kamaswami took this advice. Siddhartha, however, seemed not to take much notice. When there was a profit, he accepted
his third with composure; when there was a loss, he laughed and said, “Oh, look, this time it went badly!”

It really did seem as if these business matters were of no interest to him. Once he traveled to a village to purchase a large rice harvest, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another tradesman. Nevertheless, Siddhartha remained in this village for several days; he arranged a feast for the peasants, distributed copper coins among their children, helped celebrate a marriage, and returned from his trip in the best of spirits.

Kamaswami reproached him for not having returned home at once, saying he had wasted money and time.

Siddhartha answered, “Do not scold me, dear friend! Never has anything been achieved by scolding. If there are losses, let me bear them. I am very pleased with this journey I made the acquaintance of many different people, a Brahmin befriended me, children rode on my knees, peasants showed me their fields, and no one took me for a tradesman.”

“How very lovely!” Kamaswami cried out indignantly. “But in fact a tradesman is just what you are! Or did you undertake this journey solely for your own pleasure?”

“Certainly.” Siddhartha laughed. “Certainly I undertook the journey for my pleasure. Why else? I got to know new people and regions, enjoyed kindness and trust, found friendship. You see, dear friend, had I been Kamaswami, I’d have hurried home in bad spirits the moment I saw my purchase foiled, and indeed money and time would have been lost. But by staying on as I did, I had some agreeable days, learned things, and enjoyed pleasures, harming neither myself nor others with haste and bad spirits. And if ever I should return to this place, perhaps to buy some future harvest or for whatever other purpose, I shall be greeted happily and in friendship by friendly people and I shall praise myself for not having displayed haste and displeasure on my first visit. So be
content, friend, and do not harm yourself by scolding! When the day arrives when you see that this Siddhartha is bringing you harm, just say the word and Siddhartha will be on his way. But until that day, let us be satisfied with each other.”

In vain did the merchant attempt to convince Siddhartha that he was, after all, eating his, Kamaswami’s, bread. Siddhartha ate his own bread, or rather both of them ate the bread of others, communal bread. Never did Siddhartha have a willing ear for Kamaswami’s worries, and Kamaswami’s worries were many. If a transaction in progress appeared threatened with failure, if a shipment of goods seemed to have gone astray, or if a debtor appeared unable to repay his debt, Kamaswami was never able to persuade Siddhartha that it was useful to speak words of worry or of anger, to have a wrinkled brow, or to sleep poorly. When Kamaswami once reproached him, saying he had, after all, learned everything he knew from him, Siddhartha replied, “Please don’t make such jokes at my expense! From you I learned how much a basket of fish costs, and how much interest one can charge for borrowed money. These are your spheres of knowledge. I did not learn how to think from you, most esteemed Kamaswami; it would be better if you tried learning this from me!”

In fact, his heart wasn’t in his trading. Conducting business was good because it brought him money for Kamala—indeed, much more than he needed. As for the rest, Siddhartha’s interest and curiosity were piqued only by those whose trades, crafts, worries, amusements, and follies had once been as foreign and distant to him as the moon. Easy as it was for him to converse with everyone, live with everyone, learn from everyone, he was nonetheless quite aware that there was something separating him from them, and this thing that set him apart was his life as a Samana. He observed people living in a childish or animal way that he simultaneously loved and deplored. He saw their struggles, watched them suffer and turn gray
over things that seemed to him utterly unworthy of such a price—things like money, petty pleasures, petty honors. He saw people scold and insult one another, saw them wailing over aches and pains that would just make a Samana smile, suffering on account of deprivations a Samana would not notice.

He was open to everything these people brought him. He welcomed the tradesman with canvas for sale, welcomed the debtor seeking a loan, welcomed the beggar who reeled off the hour-long saga of his poverty and yet was not half so poor as any Samana. The wealthy foreign merchant received the same treatment from him as the servant who shaved him and the street peddler whom he allowed to cheat him of small change when he bought bananas. When Kamaswami came to him to bemoan his worries or reproach him on account of some business matter, he listened cheerfully and with interest, found him curious, tried to understand him, conceded one or another point, just as much as seemed necessary, then turned to greet the next person who desired his attention. And there were many who came to see him. Many came to do business, many to cheat him, many to sound him out surreptitiously, many to appeal to his pity, many to hear his advice. He dispensed advice, he pitied, he gave presents, he allowed himself to be cheated a little, and this whole game—along with the passion with which everyone else was pursuing it—occupied his thoughts just as fully as they had once been occupied by the gods and Brahman.

At times he felt, deep down in his breast, a faint, dying voice faintly warning him, faintly lamenting, so faint he could scarcely hear it. At once he would become conscious for an hour that he was living a strange life, that all the things he was doing here were but a game, and that, while he was in good spirits and at times felt joy, life itself was nonetheless rushing by without touching him. Like a juggler with his balls, he was
just playing in his business dealings with the people around him, watching them, taking his pleasure in them; his heart, the fountainhead of his being, was not in it. This fountainhead was flowing somewhere else, as if far distant from him, invisibly flowing and flowing, no longer part of his life. Now and again he was seized with horror at these thoughts and wished that he too might be permitted to join in all these childish goings-on with passion, with all his heart—that he might be permitted truly to live, truly to act, truly to enjoy and live rather than just standing there as a spectator.

But again and again he returned to beautiful Kamala, learned the art of love, practiced the cult of pleasure in which, more than in any other sphere, giving and taking become one. He conversed with her, learned from her, gave her counsel, received counsel. She understood him better than Govinda had once understood him; she resembled him more closely.