The courtesan bent over him, took a long look at his face, at his eyes, which had grown tired.

“You are the best lover,” she said thoughtfully, “I ever saw.  You’re stronger than others, more supple, more willing.  You’ve learned my art well, Siddhartha.  At some time, when I’ll be older, I’d want to bear your child.  And yet, my dear, you’ve remained a Samana, and yet you do not love me, you love nobody.  Isn’t it so?”

“It might very well be so,” Siddhartha said tiredly.  “I am like you.  You also do not love—­how else could you practise love as a craft?  Perhaps, people of our kind can’t love.  The childlike people can; that’s their secret.”

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.