“Siddhartha will do what his father will tell him to do.”

The first light of day shone into the room.  The Brahman saw that Siddhartha was trembling softly in his knees.  In Siddhartha’s face he saw no trembling, his eyes were fixed on a distant spot.  Then his father realized that even now Siddhartha no longer dwelt with him in his home, that he had already left him.

The Father touched Siddhartha’s shoulder.

“You will,” he spoke, “go into the forest and be a Samana.  When you’ll have found blissfulness in the forest, then come back and teach me to be blissful.  If you’ll find disappointment, then return and let us once again make offerings to the gods together.  Go now and kiss your mother, tell her where you are going to.  But for me it is time to go to the river and to perform the first ablution.”

He took his hand from the shoulder of his son and went outside.  Siddhartha wavered to the side, as he tried to walk.  He put his limbs back under control, bowed to his father, and went to his mother to do as his father had said.

As he slowly left on stiff legs in the first light of day the still quiet town, a shadow rose near the last hut, who had crouched there, and joined the pilgrim—­Govinda.

“You have come,” said Siddhartha and smiled.

“I have come,” said Govinda.

WITH THE SAMANAS

In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the skinny Samanas, and offered them their companionship and—­obedience.  They were accepted.

Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street.  He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak.  He ate only once a day, and never something cooked.  He fasted for fifteen days.  He fasted for twenty-eight days.  The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks.  Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin.  His glance turned to icy when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people.  He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children—­and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction.  The world tasted bitter.  Life was torture.

A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal:  to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow.  Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal.  Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.