his disposition for
giving away and loaning money to those who petitioned him. He, who
gambled away tens of thousands at one roll of the dice and laughed at
it, became more strict and more petty in his business, occasionally
dreaming at night about money! And whenever he woke up from this ugly
spell, whenever he found his face in the mirror at the bedroom's wall to
have aged and become more ugly, whenever embarrassment and disgust came
over him, he continued fleeing, fleeing into a new game, fleeing into a
numbing of his mind brought on by sex, by wine, and from there he fled
back into the urge to pile up and obtain possessions. In this pointless
cycle he ran, growing tired, growing old, growing ill.

Then the time came when a dream warned him. He had spend the hours of
the evening with Kamala, in her beautiful pleasure-garden. They had
been sitting under the trees, talking, and Kamala had said thoughtful
words, words behind which a sadness and tiredness lay hidden. She had
asked him to tell her about Gotama, and could not hear enough of him,
how clear his eyes, how still and beautiful his mouth, how kind his
smile, how peaceful his walk had been. For a long time, he had to tell
her about the exalted Buddha, and Kamala had sighed and had said: "One
day, perhaps soon, I'll also follow that Buddha. I'll give him my
pleasure-garden for a gift and take my refuge in his teachings." But
after this, she had aroused him, and had tied him to her in the act
of making love with painful fervour, biting and in tears, as if, once
more, she wanted to squeeze the last sweet drop out of this vain,
fleeting pleasure. Never before, it had become so strangely clear to
Siddhartha, how closely lust was akin to death. Then he had lain by
her side, and Kamala's face had been close to him, and under her eyes
and next to the corners of her mouth he had, as clearly as never before,
read a fearful inscription, an inscription of small lines, of slight
grooves, an inscription reminiscent of autumn and old age, just as
Siddhartha himself, who was only in his forties, had already noticed,
here and there, gray hairs among his black ones. Tiredness was written
on Kamala's beautiful face, tiredness from walking a long path, which
has no happy destination, tiredness and the beginning of withering,
and concealed, still unsaid, perhaps not even conscious anxiety: fear of
old age, fear of the autumn, fear of having to die. With a sigh, he had
b