THE BOY, TIMID and weeping, attended his mother's funeral. He was shy and gloomy while listening to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his own son and welcomed him into his place in Vasudeva's hut. Pale, he sat by the hill of the dead for many days. He didn't want to eat, showed a stony countenance, closed his heart, and met his fate with resistance and denial.

Siddhartha went easy on him, letting the boy do as he pleased; Siddhartha honored his mourning. Siddhartha understood that his son did not know him, and that he could not love him like a father. He slowly saw and also understood that the eleven-year-old boy was pampered, that he was a mother's boy, and that he had grown up with the habits of wealthy people. He was accustomed to fine food, a soft bed, and servants to whom he could give orders. Siddhartha understood that the pampered child who was mourning could not suddenly and willingly be content with a poor life among strangers. He did not force him, did many chores for him, and always picked the best portion of the meal for him. He hoped to slowly win the boy over with kind patience.

He had called himself rich and happy when the boy had come to him. Time had passed in the meantime, and the boy was still a stranger and was still despondent. Siddhartha began to understand that his son had not brought him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry, when he saw that his son displayed a proud and stubbornly disobedient heart, didn't want to do any work, did not respect the old men, and stole from Vasudeva's fruit trees. And yet Siddhartha loved him, and preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy. Since young Siddhartha came to the hut, the old men had split the work. Vasudeva had once again taken on the job of ferryman all by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did the work in the hut and field.

Siddhartha waited for a long time—many months—to see his son understand him, accept his love, or perhaps reciprocate it. Vasudeva watched and waited for long months, and said nothing. One day, when the young Siddhartha had once again greatly tormented his father with spite and vacillation, breaking both of his rice bowls, Vasudeva took his friend aside in the evening and talked to him.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but I'm talking to you from a heart full of camaraderie. I'm watching you torment yourself, and I see that you're grieving. Your son, my friend, is worrying both you and me. That young bird is accustomed to a different life, to a different nest. He did not run away from riches and the city as you did when you were disgusted and fed up with it. He had to leave all this behind against his will. I have asked the river many times, my friend, about this. But the river laughs at me. It is laughing at you and me, and is shaking with laughter at our foolishness. Water wants to join water, youth wants to join youth—your son is not in a place where he can prosper. You, too, should ask the river; you should listen to it as well!

Troubled, Siddhartha looked into that friendly face, into the numerous wrinkles which held incessant cheerfulness within them.

“How could I part with him?” he said quietly, ashamed. “Give me some more time, my friend! I'm struggling for him, you see; I'm seeking to win his heart with love and kind patience, and I intend to capture it. The river shall also talk to him one day; he has also been called.”

Vasudeva's smile blossomed even more fully. “Oh yes, he too is called, and he too is a part of the eternal life. But do we—you and I—know what he is called upon to do, what path he is to take, which actions he should perform, and which pains he should endure? His pain will not be slight; after all, his heart is hard and proud, and people like this have to suffer quite a bit, make many mistakes, do a great deal of injustice, and burden themselves with a lot of sin. Tell me, my friend: you're not disciplining your son? You don't force him? You don't beat him or punish him?

“No, Vasudeva, I don't do any of these things.”

“I knew it. You don't force him, beat him, and give him orders because you know that “soft” is stronger than “hard,” that water is stronger than the rocks, that love is stronger than compulsion. This is good; I praise you. But aren't you mistaken in thinking that you aren't already forcing him or punishing him? Don't you shackle him with your love? Don't you, every day, make him feel inferior, and make it harder on him with your kindness and patience? Don't you force the arrogant and pampered boy to live in a hut with two old banana-eaters for whom even rice is a delicacy, whose thoughts can't be like his, and whose hearts are old and quiet and beating at a different pace from his? Isn't he coerced and punished by all this?

Troubled, Siddhartha looked at the ground. He quietly asked: “What do you think I should do?”

Vasudeva said: “Bring him to the city, take him to his mother's house, and give him to the servants who will still be around. If there aren't any that are still around, take him to a teacher, not for the sake of the teachings, but so that he will be among other boys and girls in a world which is his own. Haven't you ever thought about this?”

“You're seeing into my heart,” said Siddhartha sadly. “I have often thought about this. But see, how am I going to put him, who doesn't have a tender heart anyway, into this world? Won't he become enthusiastic, lose himself to pleasure and power, repeat all of his father's mistakes, and get entirely lost in Samsara?”

The ferryman's smile lit up brightly. He softly touched Siddhartha's arm and said: “Ask the river about it, my friend! Hear it laugh about it! Do you actually believe that you committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them, too? How could you in any way protect your son from Samsara? How could you? Through prayers, lessons, and admonition? My friend, have you entirely forgotten that story about Siddhartha, a Brahmin's son, that contains so many lessons and which you once told me here on this very spot? Who kept Siddhartha the Samana safe from Samsara, sin, greed, and foolishness? Were his father's religious devotion, his teacher's warnings, his own knowledge, or his own seeking able to keep him safe? Which father or teacher was able to protect him from living his life for himself, soiling himself with life, burdening himself with guilt, drinking the bitter drink for himself, or finding this path for himself? Do you think, my friend, that anyone is spared from this path? That, perhaps, your little son would be spared because you love him and want to keep him from suffering, pain, and disappointment? But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take even the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself.

Vasudeva had never before spoken so many words. Siddhartha kindly thanked him, going into the hut full of trouble where he could not sleep for some time. Vasudeva had not told him anything that he hadn't already thought or known himself. But this knowledge was something he could not act upon, and stronger than this knowledge was his love for the boy, his tenderness, and his fear of losing him. Had he ever given his heart over so much to something? Had he ever loved anyone like this: blindly, unsuccessfully, in suffering—and yet still happy?

Siddhartha could not heed his friend's advice; he couldn't give up the boy. He allowed the boy to give him orders and disrespect him. He said nothing and waited, beginning each day to wage the mute battle of friendliness, the silent war of patience. Vasudeva also said nothing and waited, being friendly, wise, and patient. They were both masters of patience.

Once, when the boy's face reminded him very much of Kamala, Siddhartha suddenly recalled something which Kamala said to him long ago in the days of their youth. “You cannot love,” she said to him; he had agreed with her, comparing himself with a star while likening the childlike people to falling leaves. He had, nevertheless, sensed accusation in that line. Indeed, he had never been able to lose himself or devote himself completely to another person, forgetting himself and committing foolish acts for the love of another person. He had never been able to do this, and it had seemed to him at the time that this was the great distinction that set him apart from the childlike people. But since his son had come, Siddhartha had also become a childlike person who suffered for the sake of another person, loved another person, lost himself to a love and became a fool because of love. He, too, now felt for once in his life this strongest and strangest of all passions; late in life he suffered miserably and was nevertheless in bliss, renewed in some sense, and enriched by a single thing.

He sensed quite strongly that this blind love for his son was a passion, something very human—that it was Samsara, a murky spring of dark waters. At the same time, he felt nonetheless that it was not worthless but necessary, that it came from the essence of his own being. This pleasure also must be atoned for, the pain also had to be endured, and these foolish acts also had to be committed.

Throughout all of this, the son let him commit foolish acts, let him court his affection while Siddhartha humiliated himself every day by giving in to the boy's moods. This father had nothing that delighted him and nothing that he feared. This father was a good man: kind, soft, perhaps very devout or a saint—and yet he had no traits which could win the boy over. This father, who kept him prisoner here in this miserable hut of his, was boring. He answered every naughtiness with a smile, every insult with amiability, every vicious comment with kindness; these were the abominable tricks of this sly old man. The boy would have liked it much more if the man had threatened or abused him.

The day came when the things on the young Siddhartha's mind came exploding forth, and he openly turned on his father. The latter had given the boy a task: he had told him to gather brushwood. The boy, however, did not leave the hut. He stayed where he was in stubborn disobedience and rage, thumped on the ground with his feet, clenched his fists, and screamed out in his father's face with an outburst filled with powerful hatred and contempt.

“Get the brushwood for yourself!” shouted the boy, foaming at the mouth. “I'm not your servant. I do know, however, that you won't dare hit me; I know that you constantly want to punish me and subdue me with your religious devotion and indulgence. You want me to become just as devout, soft, and wise as you! But listen up—just to make you suffer, I would rather become a highway robber and murderer, and go to hell, than to become like you! I hate you! You're not my father, even if you've been my mother's lover ten times over!”

Rage and grief frothed over within the boy as he foamed at the father with a hundred savage and evil words. The boy then ran away and returned only late at night.

But when the next morning came, he had disappeared. What had also disappeared was a small basket woven from raffia of two colors; this was where the ferrymen kept the copper and silver coins which they received as fare. The boat had also disappeared; Siddhartha saw it lying on the opposite bank. The boy had run away.

“I must follow him,” said Siddhartha, who had been shaking with grief since the boy's ranting and raving yesterday. “A child can't go through the forest all alone. He'll perish. We have to build a raft, Vasudeva, and cross over the water.”

“We'll build a raft,” said Vasudeva, “so that we can get back the boat which the boy has taken away. But you should let the boy run along, my friend. He is no longer a child; he knows how to get around. He's looking for the path to the city, and he is doing what is correct: don't forget that. He's doing what you've failed to do yourself. He's taking care of himself; he's following his path. Alas, I see you suffering, Siddhartha, but you're suffering a pain which is somewhat laughable, and at which you'll soon be laughing yourself.”

Siddhartha gave no answer. He already held the axe in his hands, and he began to make a raft of bamboo; Vasudeva helped him tie the canes together with grass ropes. They then crossed over, drifting far off their course and landing the raft upriver on the opposite bank.

“Why did you bring the axe?” asked Siddhartha.

Vasudeva said: “It could be that our boat's oar became lost.”

Siddhartha knew what his friend was really thinking. He was thinking that the boy threw the oar away or broke it to avenge himself and keep them from following him. And, in fact, there was no oar left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed at the bottom of the boat and looked at his friend, smiling, as if to say: “See what your son is trying to tell you? Can't you see that he doesn't want to be followed?” He didn't say this with words, however. Vasudeva started making a new oar. Siddhartha, however, said farewell and then went to look for the runaway. Vasudeva didn't stop him.

After Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long time, it occurred to him that his search was futile. Either the boy was far ahead and had already reached the city, he thought, or he is still on his way, concealing himself from the pursuer. As he continued to think, he also found that he was not worried about his son, and knew deep inside that his son neither had perished nor was in any danger in the forest. Even so, he ran without stopping—not to save the boy, but just to satisfy his desire to see him once more. He ran until he was just outside the city.

When he reached a wide road near the city, he stopped by the entrance of the beautiful pleasure garden which once belonged to Kamala and where he had seen her in her sedan chair for the first time. The past welled up within his soul, and he once again saw himself standing there as a young, bearded, naked Samana with a hair full of dust. Siddhartha stood there for a long time and looked through the open gate into the garden, seeing monks in yellow robes walking among the beautiful trees.

He stood there contemplating things for a long time, seeing visions and listening to his life's story. He stood there for a long time as he looked at the monks and saw instead a young Siddhartha and a young Kamala walking among the high trees. He clearly saw himself being served food and drink by Kamala, receiving his first kiss from her, and looking proudly and scornfully back on Brahminism as he began his worldly life full of desire and pride. He saw Kamaswami, the servants, the banquets, the gamblers with their dice, the musicians, Kamala's songbird in its cage. He lived through all of this once again, breathing Samsara; he was old and tired once again, felt disgust once again, and once again wanted to annihilate himself and be healed by the holy “Om”.

After standing at the garden's gate for a long time, Siddhartha realized that the desire that made him come to this place was foolish. He could not help his son, and he was not allowed to cling to him. He felt love for the runaway deep within his heart like a wound. At the same time, he felt that this wound had not been given to him so that he could turn a knife in it; the wound must blossom and shine.

The fact that this wound had not yet blossomed and did not yet shine made him sad at this hour. Instead of the goal of seeing his runaway son that had drawn him here, there was now emptiness. Filled with sadness, he sat down; he felt something dying in his heart and felt empty, no longer seeing any joy and having no goal. He was lost in thought as he sat and waited. He had learned this one thing by the river: how to wait, how to have patience, how to listen attentively. He sat and listened while sitting in the dust of the road. He listened to his heart as it beat tiredly and sadly, and he waited for a voice. He crouched and listened for many hours, but saw no visions any more. He fell into emptiness, and let himself fall without seeing a path. When he felt this wound burning, he silently spoke the Om and filled himself with Om. The monks in the garden saw him, and since he was crouching for many hours and dust was gathering on his gray hair, one of them came to him and placed two bananas in front of him. The old man did not see him.

He awoke from this petrified state by the touch of a hand on his shoulder. He instantly recognized this tender, bashful, touch, and he regained his senses. He rose up and greeted Vasudeva, who had followed him. When he looked into Vasudeva's friendly face, saw the small wrinkles filled with nothing but his smile, and saw his happy eyes, Siddhartha smiled, too. He now saw the bananas lying in front of him, picked them up, and gave one to the ferryman, eating the other one himself. After this, he silently went back into the forest with Vasudeva and returned home to the ferry. Neither one talked about what had happened today, neither one mentioned the boy's name, neither one spoke about his running away, and neither one spoke about the wound. Siddhartha lay down on his bed inside the hut, and after a while when Vasudeva came to offer him a bowl of coconut-milk, the ferryman found Siddhartha already asleep.