Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mothers funeral; gloomy and shy, he had listeo Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and weled him at his pla Vasudevas hut. Pale, he sat for many days by the hill of the dead, did not want to eat, gave no open look, did not open his heart, met his fate with resistand denial.
Siddhartha spared him a him do as he pleased, he honoured his m. Siddhartha uood that his son did not know him, that he could not love him like a father. Slowly, he also saw and uood that the eleven-year-old ampered boy, a mothers boy, and that he had grown up in the habits of rich people, aced to finer food, to a soft bed, aced to giving orders to servants. Siddhartha uood that the m, pampered child could not suddenly and willingly be tent with a life among strangers and in poverty. He did not force him, he did many a chore for him, alicked the best piece of the meal for him. Slowly, he hoped to win him over, by friendly patience.
Rid happy, he had called himself, when the boy had e to him. Siime had passed on in the meantime, and the boy remained a stranger and in a gloomy disposition, since he displayed a proud and stubbornly disobedie, did not want to do any work, did not pay his respect to the old men, stole from Vasudevas fruit-trees, then Siddhartha began to uand that his son had nht him happiness and peace, but suffering and worry. But he loved him, and he preferred the suffering and worries of love over happiness and joy without the boy. Since young Siddhartha was i, the old men had split the work. Vasudeva had again taken on the job of the ferryman all by himself, and Siddhartha, in order to be with his son, did the work i and the field.
For a long time, for long months, Siddhartha waited for his son to uand him, to accept his love, to perhaps reciprocate it. For long months, Vasudeva waited, watg, waited and said nothing. One day, when Siddhartha the younger had once again tormented his father very much with spite and an unsteadiness in his wishes and had broken both of his rice-bowls, Vasudeva took in the evening his friend aside and talked to him.
"Pardon me." he said, "from a friendly heart, Im talking to you. Im seeing that you are tormenting yourself, Im seeing that youre in grief. Your son, my dear, is w you, and he is also w me. That young bird is aced to a different life, to a differe. He has not, like you, ran away from riches and the city, being disgusted and fed up with it; against his will, he had to leave all this behind. I asked the river, oh friend, many times I have asked it. But the river laughs, it laughs at me, it laughs at you and me, and is shaking with laughter at out foolishness. Water wants to join water, youth wants to join youth, your son is not in the place where he prosper. You too should ask the river; you too should listen to it!"
Troubled, Siddhartha looked into his friendly face, in the many wrinkles of which there was incessant cheerfulness.
"How could I part with him?" he said quietly, ashamed. "Give me some more time, my dear! See, Im fighting for him, Im seeking to win his heart, with love and with friendly patience I io capture it. One day, the river shall also talk to him, he also is called upon."
Vasudevas smile flourished more warmly. "Oh yes, he too is called upooo is of the eternal life. But do we, you and me, know what he is called upon to do, ath to take, what as to perform, ain to endure? Not a small one, his pain will