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,