Siddhartha also felt desire and felt the source of his sexuality moving; but since he had never touched a woman before, he hesitated for a moment, while his hands were already prepared to reach out for her.  And in this moment he heard, shuddering with awe, the voice if his innermost self, and this voice said No.  Then, all charms disappeared from the young woman’s smiling face, he no longer saw anything else but the damp glance of a female animal in heat.  Politely, he petted her cheek, turned away from her and disappeared away from the disappointed woman with light steps into the bamboo-wood.

On this day, he reached the large city before the evening, and was happy, for he felt the need to be among people.  For a long time, he had lived in the forests, and the straw hut of the ferryman, in which he had slept that night, had been the first roof for a long time he has had over his head.

Before the city, in a beautifully fenced grove, the traveller came across a small group of servants, both male and female, carrying baskets.  In their midst, carried by four servants in an ornamental sedan-chair, sat a woman, the mistress, on red pillows under a colourful canopy.  Siddhartha stopped at the entrance to the pleasure-garden and watched the parade, saw the servants, the maids, the baskets, saw the sedan-chair and saw the lady in it.  Under black hair, which made to tower high on her head, he saw a very fair, very delicate, very smart face, a brightly red mouth, like a freshly cracked fig, eyebrows which were well tended and painted in a high arch, smart and watchful dark eyes, a clear, tall neck rising from a green and golden garment, resting fair hands, long and thin, with wide golden bracelets over the wrists.

Siddhartha saw how beautiful she was, and his heart rejoiced.  He bowed deeply, when the sedan-chair came closer, and straightening up again, he looked at the fair, charming face, read for a moment in the smart eyes with the high arcs above, breathed in a slight fragrant, he did not know.  With a smile, the beautiful women nodded for a moment and disappeared into the grove, and then the servant as well.

Thus I am entering this city, Siddhartha thought, with a charming omen.  He instantly felt drawn into the grove, but he thought about it, and only now he became aware of how the servants and maids had looked at him at the entrance, how despicable, how distrustful, how rejecting.

I am still a Samana, he thought, I am still an ascetic and beggar.  I must not remain like this, I will not be able to enter the grove like this.  And he laughed.

The next person who came along this path he asked about the grove and for the name of the woman, and was told that this was the grove of Kamala, the famous courtesan, and that, aside from the grove, she owned a house in the city.

Then, he entered the city.  Now he had a goal.