Kamala

Kamala is the most beautiful and famous courtesan of the large city near which Siddhartha begins his worldly life. She is first seen by Siddhartha as she is carried in an ornamental sedan-chair through a pleasure-garden, surrounded by servants, a woman of such striking appearance that her face—very fair, very delicate, very smart, with a brightly red mouth like a freshly cracked fig, eyebrows painted in a high arch, and smart, watchful dark eyes—immediately draws him. She owns both a grove outside the city and a house within it, and she is known throughout the region as a master of the art of love. When Siddhartha, still a shaven-headed Samana, approaches her at the entrance to her grove, she initially laughs at his appearance—his long hair and torn loin-cloth—and tells him that the young men who come to her wear fine clothes, shoes, and perfume, and carry money in their pouches. Yet she is intrigued enough to accept a poem he composes for her, and after he kisses her for it, she is astonished by his quick learning. She directs him to the merchant Kamaswami, telling him that if he can become the merchant's equal rather than his servant, she will be satisfied. From that point, Kamala becomes Siddhartha's teacher in love, instructing him thoroughly in the school of thought that pleasure cannot be taken without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every look, every spot of the body, however small, has its secret which brings happiness to those who know it. She teaches him that lovers must not part after celebrating love without one admiring the other, without being just as defeated as they have been victorious, so that neither feels abused or bored. She is the first person to truly understand him since Govinda, and Siddhartha tells her that she is like him—different from most people, with a peace and refuge inside herself to which she can go at every hour. Yet she also perceives what he cannot: that he remains a Samana at heart, that he does not love her, that he loves nobody. She tells him this thoughtfully, saying that he is the best lover she has ever seen, stronger and more supple than others, but that he does not love, and she compares him to herself, saying that people like them cannot love—that is the secret of the childlike people. Siddhartha agrees, saying it might very well be so. Over the years, as Siddhartha becomes rich and indulges in gambling and worldly pleasures, Kamala ages. In a dream, Siddhartha sees her rare singing bird dead in its golden cage, and he wakes from this dream feeling that the game of Sansara is over. He leaves the city without telling her, and when she learns of his disappearance, she is not astonished—she had always expected it, knowing he was a Samana, a man at home nowhere. She goes to the window where she keeps the singing bird in its golden cage, opens the door, takes the bird out, and lets it fly. From that day on, she receives no more visitors and keeps her house locked. She soon discovers she is pregnant from their last time together. Years later, when news spreads that the Buddha Gotama is dying, Kamala, who has long since retired from her former life, given her pleasure-garden to the monks as a gift, and taken refuge in the teachings, sets out on a pilgrimage to see him, accompanied by her young son, Siddhartha's son. On the way, near Vasudeva's ferry, she is bitten by a black snake and collapses. Vasudeva carries her to the hut where Siddhartha now lives, and she dies there, in his arms, after recognizing him and seeing that he has found peace. Her final words acknowledge that she too will find peace, and she dies looking into his eyes, having found in him the same peace she had sought from the Buddha. Siddhartha sits for a long time looking at her dead face, remembering how he had once compared her mouth to a freshly cracked fig, and he feels the indestructibility of every life and the eternity of every moment.