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.