know that I am in
agreement with Gotama. How should he not know love, he, who has
discovered all elements of human existence in their transitoriness, in
their meaninglessness, and yet loved people thus much, to use a long,
laborious life only to help them, to teach them! Even with him, even
with your great teacher, I prefer the thing over the words, place more
importance on his acts and life than on his speeches, more on the
gestures of his hand than his opinions. Not in his speech, not in his
thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life."

For a long time, the two old men said nothing. Then spoke Govinda,
while bowing for a farewell: "I thank you, Siddhartha, for telling me
some of your thoughts. They are partially strange thoughts, not all
have been instantly understandable to me. This being as it may, I thank
you, and I wish you to have calm days."

(But secretly he thought to himself: This Siddhartha is a bizarre
person, he expresses bizarre thoughts, his teachings sound foolish.
So differently sound the exalted one's pure teachings, clearer, purer,
more comprehensible, nothing strange, foolish, or silly is contained in
them. But different from his thoughts seemed to me Siddhartha's hands
and feet, his eyes, his forehead, his breath, his smile, his greeting,
his walk. Never again, after our exalted Gotama has become one with the
Nirvana, never since then have I met a person of whom I felt: this is a
holy man! Only him, this Siddhartha, I have found to be like this. May
his teachings be strange, may his words sound foolish; out of his gaze
and his hand, his skin and his hair, out of every part of him shines a
purity, shines a calmness, shines a cheerfulness and mildness and
holiness, which I have seen in no other person since the final death of
our exalted teacher.)

As Govinda thought like this, and there was a conflict in his heart, he
once again bowed to Siddhartha, drawn by love. Deeply he bowed to him
who was calmly sitting.

"Siddhartha," he spoke, "we have become old men. It is unlikely for
one of us to see the other again in this incarnation. I see, beloved,
that you have found peace. I confess that I haven't found it. Tell me,
oh honourable one, one more word, give me something on my way which I
can grasp, which I can understand! Give me something to be with me on
my path. It it often hard, my path, often dark, Siddhartha."

Siddhartha said nothing and looked at hi