a few words of worry or anger, to have wrinkles
on the forehead, to sleep badly. When, one day, Kamaswami held against
him that he had learned everything he knew from him, he replied: "Would
you please not kid me with such jokes! What I've learned from you is
how much a basket of fish costs and how much interests may be charged on
loaned money. These are your areas of expertise. I haven't learned to
think from you, my dear Kamaswami, you ought to be the one seeking to
learn from me."

Indeed his soul was not with the trade. The business was good enough
to provide him with the money for Kamala, and it earned him much more
than he needed. Besides from this, Siddhartha's interest and curiosity
was only concerned with the people, whose businesses, crafts, worries,
pleasures, and acts of foolishness used to be as alien and distant to
him as the moon. However easily he succeeded in talking to all of them,
in living with all of them, in learning from all of them, he was still
aware that there was something which separated him from them and this
separating factor was him being a Samana. He saw mankind going trough
life in a childlike or animallike manner, which he loved and also
despised at the same time. He saw them toiling, saw them suffering,
and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to entirely
unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being
slightly honoured, he saw them scolding and insulting each other, he
saw them complaining about pain at which a Samana would only smile, and
suffering because of deprivations which a Samana would not feel.

He was open to everything, these people brought his way. Welcome was
the merchant who offered him linen for sale, welcome was the debtor who
sought another loan, welcome was the beggar who told him for one hour
the story of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given
Samana. He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than
the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him
out of some small change when buying bananas. When Kamaswami came to
him, to complain about his worries or to reproach him concerning his
business, he listened curiously and happily, was puzzled by him, tried
to understand him, consented that he was a little bit right, only as
much as he considered indispensable, and turned away from him, towards
the next person who would ask for him. And there were many who came to
him