At the start of day Siddhartha asked his host, the ferry man, to take him across the river. The ferry man put him on his bamboo raft and took him across the river as the red light of morning shimmered on the expanse of water.
“This is a beautiful river,” he said to his companion.
“Yes,” said the ferry man, “it is a very beautiful river, I love it above all else. I have many times listened to what it has to say, many times looked into its eyes, and it has always had something to teach me. There is a great deal that you can learn from a river.”
“Thank you for your help,” said Siddhartha as he stepped onto the other shore. “I have nothing I could give you for your hospitality, my friend, nothing I could pay you. I have no home to live in, I am the son of a brahmin and a samana.”
“That was easy to see,” said the ferry man, “and I never did expect any payment from you, no gift for my hospitality. You can give me something another time.”
“You think so?” said Siddhartha with a laugh.
“Certainly. That too is something I have learnt from the river: everything comes back again! Even you, samana, you will be back again. So, farewell! My fee can be your friendship. Think of me always when you make sacrifice to the gods.”
Smiling, they took their leave of each other. Smiling, Siddhartha was glad of the friendship and the friendliness of the ferry man. “He is so like Govinda,” he smiling thought, “everyone I come across on my ways is like Govinda. Everyone gives me thanks, although it is they who have the right to receive thanks from me. Everyone is humble, everyone wishes to be my friend, everyone wishes to obey me and to think little. People are like children.”
Around midday he was walking through a village. In the street and in front of its mud huts there were children running about, playing with marrow seeds and mussels, they shouted and played rough games with each other, but when this strange samana appeared they became timid and ran away. As it left the village the path led across a stream and there was a young woman kneeling at the bank of the stream washing clothes. As Siddhartha greeted her she raised her head and looked up at him with a smile so that he could see the sparkling whiteness of her eyes. He declared a blessing on her, as is usual among travellers, and asked her how far it still was till he would reach the big city. At that, she stood up and went up to him, her face looked young and the light sparkled appealingly on her moist lips. She exchanged a few jokey words with him, asked if he was hungry, and whether it was true that samanas sleep alone in the woods and are not allowed to have any women with them. As she said this she placed her left foot on his right foot and made the kind of movement a woman makes when she is leading a man into that sort of amorous pleasure which the books call “climbing a tree.” Siddhartha felt his blood become warm, and as his dream came back into his mind at that moment he leant down slightly towards the woman and, with his lips, he kissed the brown tip of her breast. When he looked up he saw the smile on her face, full of desire, and that her narrowed eyes yearned for him.
Siddhartha also felt desire and felt the source of his gender as it began to move; but he had never touched a woman until then and he hesitated a moment before his hands were ready to reach out for her. And in that moment he shivered as he heard a voice from deep within him, and the voice said no. Then all the charm faded from the young woman’s smiling face, all he saw was the damp gaze of a woman impelled by lust like an animal. He remained friendly, stroked her cheek, turned away from her and disappeared nimbly into the bamboo forest, leaving her disappointed.