noblemen, no worker that did not belong to the workers,
and found refuge with them, shared their life, spoke their language.
No Brahman, who would not be regarded as Brahmans and lived with them,
no ascetic who would not find his refuge in the caste of the Samanas,
and even the most forlorn hermit in the forest was not just one and
alone, he was also surrounded by a place he belonged to, he also
belonged to a caste, in which he was at home. Govinda had become a
monk, and a thousand monks were his brothers, wore the same robe as he,
believed in his faith, spoke his language. But he, Siddhartha, where
did he belong to? With whom would he share his life? Whose language
would he speak?

Out of this moment, when the world melted away all around him, when he
stood alone like a star in the sky, out of this moment of a cold and
despair, Siddhartha emerged, more a self than before, more firmly
concentrated. He felt: This had been the last tremor of the awakening,
the last struggle of this birth. And it was not long until he walked
again in long strides, started to proceed swiftly and impatiently,
heading no longer for home, no longer to his father, no longer back.

SECOND PART

Dedicated to Wilhelm Gundert, my cousin in Japan

KAMALA

Siddhartha learned something new on every step of his path, for the
world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun
rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the
distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the
sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like
a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows,
rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the
bushes in the morning, distant hight mountains which were blue and
pale, birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field.
All of this, a thousand-fold and colourful, had always been there,
always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and
bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more
to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes,
looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by
thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence
lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible. But now, his liberated
eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought
to be at home in th