Siddhartha

Author(s): Hermann Hesse, Hilda Rosner
Publisher: Macmillan India

Page 33

The merchant's attempts to convince Siddhartha that he was eating his, Kamaswami's, bread were also in vain. Siddhartha ate his own bread; moreover, they all ate the bread of others, everybody's bread. Siddhartha was never concerned about Kamaswami's troubles and Kamaswami had many troubles. If a transaction threatened to be unsuccessful, if a consignment of goods was lost, if a debtor appeared unable to pay, Kamaswami could never persuade his colleague that it served any purpose to utter troubled or angry words, to form wrinkles on the forehead and sleep badly. When Kamaswami once reminded him that he had learned everything from him, he replied: "Do not make such jokes. I have learned from you how much a basket of fish costs and how much interest one can claim for lending money. That is your knowledge. But I did not learn how to think from you, my dear Kamaswami. It would be better if you learned that from me.
His heart was not indeed in business. It was useful in order to bring him money for Kamala, and it brought him more than he really needed. Moreover, Siddhartha's sympathy and curiosity lay only with people, whose work, troubles, pleasures and follies were more unknown and remote from him than the moon. Although he found it so easy to speak to everyone, to live with everyone, to learn from everyone, he was very conscious of the fact that there was something which separated him from them - and this was due to the fact that he had been a Samana. He saw people living in a childish or animal-like way, which he both loved and despised. He saw them toiling, saw them suffer and grow grey about things that to him did not seem worth the price - for money, small pleasures and trivial honours. He saw them scold and hurt each other; he saw them lament over pains at which the Samana laughs, and suffer at deprivations which a Samana does not feel.
He accepted all that people brought to him. The merchant who brought him linen for sale was welcome; the debtor who sought a loan was welcome, the beggar was welcome who stayed an hour telling him the story of his poverty, and who was yet not as poor as any Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant differently from the servant who shaved him and the pedlars from whom he bought bananas and let himself be robbed of small coins. If Kamaswami came to him and told him his troubles or made him reproaches about a transaction, he listened curiously and attentively, was amazed at him, tried to understand him, conceded to him a little where it seemed necessary and turned away from him to the next one who wanted him. And many people came to him - many to trade with him, many to deceive him, many to listen to him, many to elicit his sympathy, many to listen to his advice. He gave advice, he sympathized, he gave presents, he allowed himself to be cheated a little, and he occupied his thoughts with all this game and the passion with which all men play it, as much as he had previously occupied his thoughts with the gods and Brahman.
At times he heard within him a soft, gentle voice, which reminded him quietly, complained quietly, so that he could hardly hear it. Then he suddenly saw clearly that he was leading a strange life, that he was doing many things that were only a game, that he was quite cheerful and sometimes experienced pleasure, but that real life was flowing past him and did not touch him. Like a player who plays with his ball, he played with his business, with the people around him, watched them, derived amusement from them; but with his heart, with his real nature, he was not there. His real self wandered elsewhere, far away, wandered on and on invisibly and had nothing to do with his life.
He was sometimes afraid of these thoughts and wished that he could also share their childish daily affairs with
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