Chapter nine, the ferryman by this river, I want to stay, thought
said Arthur. It is the same which I have crossed a long time ago
on my way to the childlike people. A friendly ferryman had guided me.
Then he is the one I want to go to. Starting out from his
heart, my path had led me at that time into a new life,
which had now grown old and is dead. My present path, my present
new life, shall also take its start there. Tenderly, he looked into
the rushing water, into the transparent green, into the crystal lines of its
drawing, so rich in secrets, bright pearls he saw rising from the deep,
quiet bubbles of air floating on the reflecting surface, the blue of the
sky being depicted in it with a thousand eyes. The river looked at him
with green ones, with white ones, with crystal ones, with sky blue
ones. How did he love this water? How did it delight him?
How grateful was he to it? In his heart? He heard the water
talking, which was newly awakening, and it told him, love this water,
stay near it, learn from it. Oh, yes, he wanted
to learn from it. He wanted to listen to it. He who would
understand this water and its secrets, so it seemed to him, would also
understand many other things, many secrets, all secrets. But out of all
secrets of the river he today only saw one. This one touched his soul.
He saw this water ran and ran incessantly, It ran and was nevertheless
always there was, always, at all times, the same and yet new
in every moment. Great be he who would grasp this, understand this he
understood and grasped it, not only felt some idea of its stirring a distant
memory, divine voices, said Arthur Rose. The workings of hunger in his
body became unbearable. In a daze, he walked on up the path by
the river, up river, listened to the current, listened to the rumbling
hunger in his body. When he reached the ferry, the boat was just
ready, and the same ferryman who had once transported the young Samana across the
river stood in the boat. Siddartha recognized him. He had also aged very
much. Would you like to ferry me over? He asked. The ferryman,
being astonished to see such an elegant man walking along and on foot,
took him into his boat and pushed it off the bank. It is a
beautiful life you have chosen for yourself. The passenger spoke, it must be
beautiful to live by this water every day, and a cruise on it with
a smile. The man at the oar moved from side to side. It
is beautiful, sir. It is as you say. But isn't every life?
Isn't every work beautiful? This may be true, but I envy you
yours. Ah, you would soon stop enjoying it. This is nothing for
people where her fine clothes, said Arthur laughed. Once before, I have
been looked upon today because of my clothes. I have been looked upon with
distrust. Wouldn't you, ferryman, like to accept these clothes, which are
a nuisance to me from me? For you must know I have no money
to pay your fare. You are joking, sir, the ferryman laughed.
I'm not joking. Friend. Behold, once before you have ferried me across
this water in your boat for the immaterial reward of a good deed. Thus
do it today as well, and accept my clothes for it. And do
you, sir, intend to continue traveling without clothes? Ah? Most of
all, I wouldn't want to continue traveling at all. Most of all,
I would like you, ferryman, to give me an old loincloth and keep
me as your assistant, or rather as your trainee, for I'll have to
learn first how to handle the boat. For a long time, the ferryman
looked at the stranger, searching. Now I recognize you, he finally said.
At one time you've slept in my hut. This was a long time
ago, possibly more than twenty years ago, and you've been ferried across the
river by me and we parted like good friends. Haven't you been a samana?
I can't think of your name any more. My name is said d'Arthur,
and I was a samana when you last saw me. So be welcome,
said Arthur. My name is Vasu Diva. You will, so,
I hope, be my guest to day as well, and sleep in my
heart and tell me where you're coming from and why these beautiful clothes those are
such a nuisance to you. They had reached the middle of the river,
and Vasudeva pushed the oar with more strength in order to overcome the current.
He worked calmly, his eyes fixed on the front of the boat. With
brawny arms. Siddhartha sat and watched him and remembered how once before, on
that last day of his time as a samana, love for this man had
stirred in his heart. Gratefully, he accepted Vasudeva's invitation. When they had
reached the bank, he helped him to tie the boat to the stakes.
After this, the ferryman asked him to enter the hut, offered him bread
and water, and Sir Dartha ate with eager pleasure, and also ate with
eager pleasure of the mango fruits Vasu Diva offered him. Afterwards, it was
almost the time of the sunset. They sat on a log by the bank,
and sid Arthur told the fairyman about where he originally had come from and
about his life as he had seen it before his eyes to day, in
that hour of despair, until late at night lasted his tale. Vasudeva listened
with great attention, listened carefully. He let everything enter his mind, birthplace
and childhood, all that learning, all that searching, all joy, all
distress. This was among the Fairyman's virtues, one of the greatest. Like
only a few he knew how to listen without him having spoken a word,
The speaker sensed how Vasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet open waiting.
How he did not lose a single word, awaited, not a single
one with impatience, did not add his phrase or rebuke, was just listening.
Sid Arthur felt, what a happy fortune it is to confess to such
a listener, to bury in his heart his own life, his own search,
his own suffering. But in the end of Siddartha's tale, when he
spoke of the tree by the river, and of his deep fall of the
holy om, and how he had felt such a love for the river after
his slumber, the ferryman listened with twice the attention, entirely and completely absorbed
by it, with his eyes closed. And when sid Arthur felt silent,
and a long silence had occurred, then Vasudeva said, it is as I
thought. The river has spoken to you. It is your friend as well.
It speaks to you as well. That is good, That is very
good. Stay with me, said Arthur, my friend. I used to
have a wife. Her bed was next to mine, but she has died
a long time ago. For a long time I have lived alone. Now
you shall live with me. There is space and food for both. I
thank you, said said Arthur, I thank you and accept and I also
thank you for this Vasudeva for listening to me so well. These people are
rare who know how to listen. And I did not meet a single one
who knew it as well as you did. I will also learn in this
respect from you. You will learn it, spoke Vasu Diva, but not
from me. The river has taught me to listen. From it, you
will learn it as well. It knows everything, the river. Everything can
be learned from it. See you've already learned this from the river, to
that it is good to strive downwards, to sink, to seek depth.
The rich and elegant, Saidhartha. Is becoming an osman servant the learned Brahman,
said Arthur, becomes a fairy man. This has also been told to
you by the river. You'll learn that other thing from it as well,
quoth said Arthur, after a long pause. What other thing, Vasudva Vasu
Diva rose, It is late, he said, let's go to sleep.
I can't tell you that other thing, O friend. You'll learn it,
or perhaps you already know it. See I'm no learned man. I have
no special skill in speaking. I also have no special skill in thinking.
All I'm able to do is to listen and to be godly. I have
learned nothing else. If I was able to say and to teach it,
I might be a wise man. But like this, I am only a
ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river. I
have transported many thousands, and to all of them, my river has been
nothing but an obstacle on their travels. They traveled to seek money and business,
and for weddings and on pilgrimages, and the river was obstructing their path,
and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly across that obstacle. But
for some among the thousand, a few, four or five, the river
has stopped being an obstacle. They have heard its voice, they have listened
to it, and the river has become sacred to them, as it has
become sacred to me. Let's rest now, said Arthur. Said. Arthur
stayed with the ferryman and learned to operate the boat, And when there was
nothing to do at the ferry, he worked with Vasudeva in the rice field,
gathered wood, plucked the fruit off the banana trees. He learned to
build an oar and learn to mend the boat and to weave baskets, and
was joyful because of everything he learned, And the days and months passed quickly,
but more than Vasadeva could teach him. He was taught by the river
incessantly. He learned from it. Most of all, he learned from it
to listen, to pay close attention, with a quiet heart, with awaiting,
opened soul, without passion, without a wish, without judgment, without
an opinion, in a friendly manner. He lived side by side with Vasudeva,
and occasionally they exchanged some words few and at length thought about words.
Vasudeva was no friend to words. Rarely said Arthur, succeeded in persuading him
to speak. Did you so, He asked him, what one time did
you too learn that secret from the river, that there is no time?
Vasudeva's face was filled with a bright smile. Yes, said Arthur. He
spoke, It is this what you mean, isn't it? That the river
is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the
waterfall, at the fairy, at the rapids, in the sea, in
the mountains, everywhere at once, And that there is only the present for
it not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future.
This it is, said sid Arthur. And when I had learned it,
I looked at my life, and it was also a river. And the
boy, said Arthur, was only separated from the man, said Arthur,
and from the old man, said Arthur, by a shadow, not something
real. Also said Arthur's previous births were no past, and his death and
his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be.
Everything is, everything has existence and is present, said Arthur, spoke with
ecstasy deeply. This enlightenment had delighted him. Oh, was not all suffering.
Time were not all forms of tormenting oneself and being afraid. Time was
not everything hard, everything hostile in the world gone and overcome as soon as
one had overcome time, as soon as time would have been put out of
existence by one's thoughts. In ecstatic delight, he had spoken, but Vasudeva
smiled at him brightly and nodded in confirmation. Silently, he nodded, brushed
his hand over Sir Arthur's shoulder, turned back to his work, and once
again, when the river had just increased its flow in the rainy season and
made a powerful noise, then, said said Arthur, isn't it so,
oh, friend? The river has many voices, many 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 a woman giving birth,
and of a sighing man, and a thousand other voices? More so
it is, Vasudeva nodded, all voices of the creature are in its voice.
And do you know, said Arthur, 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 sad Arthur and spoke the
holy om in 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 thoughtfully 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 travelers 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 water, thought of
the same things, of a conversation from the day before, yesterday, of
one of their travelers, 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 wiver 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 fairy and the
two ferrymen which was transmitted to others, which many of the travelers felt.
It happened occasionally that a traveler, 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 fairy.
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 rumors. The years passed by and nobody counted
them. Then at one time monks came by on a pilgrimage followers of Gautama
the Buddha, who were asking to be ferried across the river, and by
then the ferrymen were told that they were most hurriedly walking back to their great
teacher, for the news had spread the Exalted One was deadly sick and would
soon die his last human death in order to become one with the salvation.
It was not long until a new flock of monks came along on their pilgrimage,
and another one, and the monks, as well as most of the
other travelers and people walking through the land, spoke of nothing else than of
Gautama and his impending death. And as people are flocking from everywhere and from
all sides, when they are going to war or to the coronation of a
king, and are gathering like ants in droves. Thus they flocked, like
being drawn on by a magic spell, to where the great Buddha was awaiting
his death, where the huge event was to take place, and the great
perfected one of an era was to become one with the glory. Often said
Arthur thought in those days of the dying wise man, the great teacher,
whose voice had admonished nations and had awoken hundreds of thousands, whose voice he
had also once heard, whose holy face he had also once seen with respect.
Kindly he thought of him, saw his path to perfection before his eyes,
and remembered with a smile those words which he had once as a young
man said to him the exalted one. They had been so it seemed to
him, proud and precocious words. With a smile, he remembered them for
a long time. He knew that there was nothing standing between Gautama and him
anymore, though he was still unable to accept his teachings. No, there
was no teaching a truly searching person, someone who truly wanted to find could
accept. But he who had found, he could approve of any teachings,
every path, every goal. There was nothing standing between him, meant all
the other thousand any more, who lived in that what is eternal, who
breathed what is divine? On one of these days when so many went on
a pilgrimage to the dying Buddha, Kamala also went to him, who used
to be one of the most beautiful of the courtesans. A long time ago,
she had retired from her previous life, had given her garden to the
monks of Tarma as a gift, had taken her refuge in the teachings,
was among the friends and benefactors of the pilgrims. Together with Saddartha, the
boy, her son. She had gone on her way due to the news
of the near death of Gautama. In simple clothes on foot with her little
son, she was traveling by the river. But the boy had soon grown
tired, desired to go back home, desired to rest, desired to eat,
became disobedient and started whining. Kamala often had to take a rest with
him. He was accustomed to having his way against her. She had to
feed him, had to comfort him, had to scold him. He did
not comprehend why he had to go on this exhausting and sad pilgrimage with his
mother to an unknown place, to a stranger who was holly and about to
die. So what if he died? How did this concern the boy?
The pilgrims were getting close to Vasudeva's ferry when little Sadhartha once again forced his
mother to rest. She Kamala herself had also become tired, and while the
boy was chewing a banana, she crouched down on the ground, closed her
eyes a bit, and rested, But suddenly she uttered a wailing scream.
The boy looked at her in fear and saw her face having grown pale from
horror, and from under her dress a small black snake fled by which Kamala
had been bitten. Hurriedly, they now both ran along the path in order
to reach people, and got near the ferry. There, Kamala collapsed and
was not able to go any further, but the boy started crying miserably,
only interrupting it to kiss and hug his mother, and she also joined his
loud screams for help, until the sound reached Vasudeva's ears, who stood at
the ferry. Quickly he came walking, took the woman on his arms,
carried her into the boat. The boy ran along, and soon they all
reached the hut, where Siddhartha stood by the stove and was just lighting the
fire. He looked up and first saw the boy's face, which wondrously reminded
him of something like a warning to remember something he had forgotten. Then he
saw Kamala, whom he instantly recognized, though she lay unconscious in the ferryman's
arms. And now he knew that it was his own son whose face had
been such a warning reminder to him, and the heart stirred in his chest.
Kamala's wound was washed, but had already turned black, and her body
was swollen. She was made to drink a healing potion. Her consciousness returned.
She lay on Sir d'arthur's bed in the hut and bent over her stood,
said Arthur, who used to love her so much it seemed like a
dream to her, with a smile. She looked at her friend's face.
Just slowly she realized her situation remembered the bite, called timidly for the boy.
He's with you. Don't worry, said Sir Arthur. Kamala looked into
his eyes. She spoke with a heavy tongue, paralyzed by the poison.
You've become old, my dear, she said, You've become gray. But
you are like the young Samana who at one time came without clothes with dusty
feet to me into the garden. You are much more like him than you
were like him at the time when you had left me and come a swami
in the eyes. You'll like him, said Arthur. Alas I have also
grown old. Old, could you still recognize me, said Arthur, smiled
instantly, I recognized you, Kamala, my dear. Kamala pointed to her
boy and said, did you recognize him as well? He is your son.
Her eyes became confused and fell shut. The boy wept, said Arthur.
Took him on his knees, let him weep, petted his hair,
and at the sight of the child's face, a Brahman prayer came to his
mind, which he had learned a long time ago when he had been a
little boy himself. Slowly, with a singing voice, he started to speak
from his past and childhood. The words came flowing to him, and with
that sing song, the boy became calm, was only now and then uttering
a sob and fell asleep. Sadartha placed him on Vasadeva's bed. Vasudeva stood
by the stove and cooked rice. Sidartha gave him a look, which he
returned with a smile. She'll die, Sadartha said quietly. Thasudiva nodded over
his friendly face ran the light of the stove's fire. Once again, Kamala
returned to consciousness. Pain distorted her face. Siddartha's eyes read the suffering on
her mouth, on her pale cheeks. Quietly, he read it attentively,
waiting, his mind, becoming one with her suffering. Kamala felt it.
Her gaze sought his eyes, looking at him, She said, now I
see that your eyes have changed as well. They've become completely different. But
what do I still recognize that you're Siddartha. It's you and it's not you.
Sidartha said nothing. Quietly, his eyes looked at hers. You have
achieved it, she asked, You have found peace. He smiled and placed
his hand on hers I'm seeing it, she said, I'm seeing it.
I too will find peace. You have found it, said Arthur, spoke
in a whisper. Kamala never stopped looking into his eyes. She thought about
her pilgrimage to Gautama, which wanted to take in order to see the face
of the perfected One, to breathe his peace. And she thought that she
had now found him in his place, and that it was good, just
as good as if she had seen the other one. She wanted to tell
this to him, but the tongue no longer obeyed her will. Without speaking,
she looked at him, and he saw the life fading from her eyes
when the final pain filled her eyes and made them grow dim, when the
final shiver ran through her limbs, his finger closed her eyelids. For a
long time, he sat and looked at her peacefully dead face. For a
long time, he observed her mouth, her old tired mouth, with those
lips which had become thin, and he remembered that he used to, in
the spring of his years, compare this mouth with a freshly cracked fig.
For a long time, he sat red in the pale face, in the
tired wrinkles, filled himself with this sight saw his own face lying in the
same manner, just as white, just as quenched out, and saw at
the same time his face and hers being young, with red lips, with
fiery eyes, and the feeling of this both being present and at the time
real. The feeling of eternity completely filled every aspect of his being deeply.
He felt, more deeply than ever before, in this hour, the indestructibility
of every life, the eternity of every moment. When he rose, Vasudva
had prepared rice for him, but Siddartha did not eat. In the stable
where their goats stood, the two old men prepared beds of straw for themselves,
and Vasudeva lay himself down to sleep. But Sidartha went outside and sat
this night before the hut, listening to the river, surrounded by the past,
touched and encircled by all times of his life at the same time.
But occasionally he rose, stepped to the door of the hut and listened whether
the boy was leaping. Early in the morning, even before the sun could
be seen, Vasudeva came out of the stable and walked over to his friend.
You haven't slept, he said, no, Vasadiva, I sat here
I was listening to the river a lot. It has told me deeply.
It has filled me with the healing thought, with the thought of oneness.
You've experienced suffering, said Arthur. But I see no sadness has entered your
heart. No, my dear, how should I be sad? I who
have been rich and happy, have become even richer and happier. Now my
son has been given to me. Your son shall be welcome to me as
well. But now, said Arthur, let's get to work. There is
much to be done. Kamala has died on the same bed on which my
wife had died a long time ago. Let us also build Kamala's funeral pile
on the same hill on which I had then built my wife's funeral pile.
While the boy was still asleep, they built the funeral pile. End of
Chapter nine.