He's doing what
you've failed to do yourself. He's taking care of himself, he's taking
his course. Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering
a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for
yourself."
Siddhartha did not answer. He already held the axe in his hands and
began to make a raft of bamboo, and Vasudeva helped him to tied the
canes together with ropes of grass. Then they crossed over, drifted
far off their course, pulled the raft upriver on the opposite bank.
"Why did you take the axe along?" asked Siddhartha.
Vasudeva said: "It might have been possible that the oar of our boat
got lost."
But Siddhartha knew what his friend was thinking. He thought, the boy
would have thrown away or broken the oar in order to get even and in
order to keep them from following him. And in fact, there was no oar
left in the boat. Vasudeva pointed to the bottom of the boat and looked
at his friend with a smile, as if he wanted to say: "Don't you see what
your son is trying to tell you? Don't you see that he doesn't want to
be followed?" But he did not say this in words. He started making a
new oar. But Siddhartha bid his farewell, to look for the run-away.
Vasudeva did not stop him.
When Siddhartha had already been walking through the forest for a long
time, the thought occurred to him that his search was useless.
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