Siddhartha
disappeared into the grove, and then the servants as well.
Thus I am entering this city, Siddhartha thought, with a charming omen.
He instantly felt drawn into the grove, but he thought about it, and
only now he became aware of how the servants and maids had looked at
him at the entrance, how despicable, how distrustful, how rejecting.
I am still a Samana, he thought, I am still an ascetic and beggar. I
must not remain like this, I will not be able to enter the grove like
this. And he laughed.
The next person who came along this path he asked about the grove and
for the name of the woman, and was told that this was the grove of
Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that, aside from the grove, she owned
a house in the city.
Then, he entered the city. Now he had a goal.
Pursuing his goal, he allowed the city to suck him in, drifted through
the flow of the streets, stood still on the squares, rested on the
stairs of stone by the river. When the evening came, he made friends
with barber’s assistant, whom he had seen working in the shade of an
arch in a building, whom he found again praying in a temple of Vishnu,
whom he told about stories of Vishnu and the Lakshmi. Among the boats
by the river, he slept this night, and early in the morning, before the
first customers came into his shop, he had the barber’s assistant shave
his beard and cut his hair, comb his hair and anoint it with fine oil.
Then he went to take his bath in the river.
When late in the afternoon, beautiful Kamala approached her grove in
her sedan-chair, Siddhartha was standing at the entrance, made a bow
and received the courtesan’s greeting. But that servant who walked at
the very end of her train he motioned to him and asked him to inform
his mistress that a young Brahman would wish to talk to her. After a
while, the servant returned, asked him, who had been waiting, to follow
him, conducted him, who was following him, without a word into a
pavilion, where Kamala was lying on a couch, and left him alone with
her.
“Weren’t you already standing out there yesterday, greeting me?” asked
Kamala.
“It’s true that I’ve already seen and greeted you yesterday.”
“But didn’t you yesterday wear a beard, and long hair, and dust in your
hair?”
“You have observed well, you have seen everything. You have seen
Siddhartha, the son of a Brahman, who has left his home to become a
Samana, and who has been a Samana for three years. But now, I have left
that path and came into this city, and the first one I met, even before
I had entered the city, was you. To say this, I have come to you, oh
Kamala! You are the first woman whom Siddhartha is not addressing with
his eyes turned to the ground. Never again I want to turn my eyes to
the ground, when I’m coming across a beautiful woman.”
Kamala smiled and played with her fan of peacocks’ feathers. And asked:
“And only to tell me this, Siddhartha has come to me?”
“To tell you this and to thank you for being so beautiful. And if it
doesn’t displease you, Kamala, I would like to ask you to be my friend
and teacher, for I know nothing yet of that art which you have mastered
in the highest degree.”
At this, Kamala laughed aloud.
“Never before this has happened to me, my friend, that a Samana from
the forest came to me and wanted to learn from me! Never before this
has happened to me, that a Samana came to me with long hair and an old,
torn loincloth! Many young men come to me, and there are also sons of
Brahmans among them, but they come in beautiful clothes, they come in
fine shoes, they have perfume in their hair and money in their pouches.
This is, oh Samana, how the young men are like who come to me.”
Quoth Siddhartha: “Already I am starting to learn from you. Even
yesterday, I was already learning. I have already taken off my beard,
have combed the hair, have oil in my hair. There is little which is
still missing in me, oh excellent one: fine clothes, fine shoes, money
in my pouch. You shall know, Siddhartha has set harder goals for
himself than such trifles, and he has reached them. How shouldn’t I
reach that goal, which I have set for myself yesterday: to be your
friend and to learn the joys of love from you! You’ll see that I’ll
learn quickly, Kamala, I have already learned harder things than what
you’re supposed to teach me. And now let’s get to it: You aren’t
satisfied with Siddhartha as he is, with oil in his hair, but without
clothes, without shoes, without money?”
Laughing, Kamala exclaimed: “No, my dear, he doesn’t satisfy me yet.
Clothes are what he must have, pretty clothes, and shoes, pretty shoes,
and lots of money in his pouch, and gifts for Kamala. Do you know it
now, Samana from the forest? Did you mark my words?”
“Yes, I have marked your words,” Siddhartha exclaimed. “How should I
not mark words which are coming from such a mouth! Your mouth is like a
freshly cracked fig, Kamala. My mouth is red and fresh as well, it will
be a suitable match for yours, you’ll see.—But tell me, beautiful
Kamala, aren’t you at all afraid of the Samana from the forest, who has
come to learn how to make love?”
“Whatever for should I be afraid of a Samana, a stupid Samana from the
forest, who is coming from the jackals and doesn’t even know yet what
women are?”
“Oh, he’s strong, the Samana, and he isn’t afraid of anything. He could
force you, beautiful girl. He could kidnap you. He could hurt you.”
“No, Samana, I am not afraid of this. Did any Samana or Brahman ever
fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his
religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very
own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to
give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely
like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.
Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against
Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from
it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! You are learning
easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be
obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the
street, but it cannot be stolen. In this, you have come up with the
wrong path. No, it would be a pity, if a pretty young man like you
would want to tackle it in such a wrong manner.”
Siddhartha bowed with a smile. “It would be a pity, Kamala, you are so
right! It would be such a great pity. No, I shall not lose a single
drop of sweetness from your mouth, nor you from mine! So it is settled:
Siddhartha will return, once he’ll have what he still lacks: clothes,
shoes, money. But speak, lovely Kamala, couldn’t you still give me one
small advice?”
“An advice? Why not? Who wouldn’t like to give an advice to a poor,
ignorant Samana, who is coming from the jackals of the forest?”
“Dear Kamala, thus advise me where I should go to, that I’ll find these
three things most quickly?”
“Friend, many would like to know this. You must do what you’ve learned
and ask for money, clothes, and shoes in return. There is no other way
for a poor man to obtain money. What might you be able to do?”
“I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing. But yes, I can also write poetry. Would you like to give me a
kiss for a poem?”
“I would like to, if I’ll like your poem. What would be its title?”
Siddhartha spoke, after he had thought about it for a moment, these
verses:
Into her shady grove stepped the pretty Kamala, At the grove’s entrance
stood the brown Samana. Deeply, seeing the lotus’s blossom, Bowed that
man, and smiling Kamala thanked. More lovely, thought the young man,
than offerings for gods, More lovely is offering to pretty Kamala.
Kamala loudly clapped her hands, so that the golden bracelets clanged.
“Beautiful are your verses, oh brown Samana, and truly, I’m losing
nothing when I’m giving you a kiss for them.”
She beckoned him with her eyes, he tilted his head so that his face
touched hers and placed his mouth on that mouth which was like a
freshly cracked fig. For a long time, Kamala kissed him, and with a
deep astonishment Siddhartha felt how she taught him, how wise she was,
how she controlled him, rejected him, lured him, and how after this
first one there was to be a long, a well ordered, well tested sequence
of kisses, every one different from the others, he was still to receive.
Breathing deeply, he remained standing where he was, and was in this
moment astonished like a child about the cornucopia of knowledge and
things worth learning, which revealed itself before his eyes.
“Very beautiful are your verses,” exclaimed Kamala, “if I was rich, I
would give you pieces of gold for them. But it will be difficult for
you to earn thus much money with verses as you need. For you need a lot
of money, if you want to be Kamala’s friend.”
“The way you’re able to kiss, Kamala!” stammered Siddhartha.
“Yes, this I am able to do, therefore I do not lack clothes, shoes,
bracelets, and all beautiful things. But what will become of you?
Aren’t you able to do anything else but thinking, fasting, making
poetry?”
“I also know the sacrificial songs,” said Siddhartha, “but I do not
want to sing them any more. I also know magic spells, but I do not want
to speak them any more. I have read the scriptures—”
“Stop,” Kamala interrupted him. “You’re able to read? And write?”
“Certainly, I can do this. Many people can do this.”
“Most people can’t. I also can’t do it. It is very good that you’re
able to read and write, very good. You will also still find use for the
magic spells.”
In this moment, a maid came running in and whispered a message into her
mistress’s ear.
“There’s a visitor for me,” exclaimed Kamala. “Hurry and get yourself
away, Siddhartha, nobody may see you in here, remember this! Tomorrow,
I’ll see you again.”
But to the maid she gave the order to give the pious Brahman white
upper garments. Without fully understanding what was happening to him,
Siddhartha found himself being dragged away by the maid, brought into a
garden-house avoiding the direct path, being given upper garments as a
gift, led into the bushes, and urgently admonished to get himself out
of the grove as soon as possible without being seen.
Contently, he did as he had been told. Being accustomed to the forest,
he managed to get out of the grove and over the hedge without making a
sound. Contently, he returned to the city, carrying the rolled up
garments under his arm. At the inn, where travellers stay, he
positioned himself by the door, without words he asked for food,
without a word he accepted a piece of rice-cake. Perhaps as soon as
tomorrow, he thought, I will ask no one for food any more.
Suddenly, pride flared up in him. He was no Samana any more, it was no
longer becoming to him to beg. He gave the rice-cake to a dog and
remained without food.
“Simple is the life which people lead in this world here,” thought
Siddhartha. “It presents no difficulties. Everything was difficult,
toilsome, and ultimately hopeless, when I was still a Samana. Now,
everything is easy, easy like that lesson in kissing, which Kamala is
giving me. I need clothes and money, nothing else; these are small,
near goals, they won’t make a person lose any sleep.”
He had already discovered Kamala’s house in the city long before, there
he turned up the following day.
“Things are working out well,” she called out to him. “They are
expecting you at Kamaswami’s, he is the richest merchant of the city.
If he’ll like you, he’ll accept you into his service. Be smart, brown
Samana. I had others tell him about you. Be polite towards him, he is
very powerful. But don’t be too modest! I do not want you to become his