Vasudeva was very old now. One day he said to Siddhartha: I have been waiting for this hour, friend. Now it has come. Let me go.

He walked into the forest, and Siddhartha did not follow. It was Siddhartha's turn to be the ferryman alone.

Many years later, a monk came across the river. He was old, and very tired, and he had been seeking all his life. He asked the ferryman if he could rest awhile. When he looked up and recognised Siddhartha's face beneath the grey hair, he wept. It was Govinda.

Tell me, old friend, said Govinda. You were always the wiser of us two. Tell me the doctrine you have learned, so that I may take it with me before I die.

I have no doctrine, said Siddhartha. Only this: wisdom cannot be spoken. Whenever one tries, it becomes foolishness. Knowledge — yes, one can hand knowledge on. Wisdom one can only live. One can be carried by it, one can work wonders with it, but one cannot say it.

And he asked Govinda to lean forward, and he kissed his friend on the forehead.

In that kiss, Govinda saw — for one shining instant — a thousand faces flowing through Siddhartha's face. His mother's face. Kamala's face. A murderer's face. A newborn's face. A dying man's face. A fish, a falcon, a stone, a saint. All of them at once. All of them one.

And Govinda bowed, weeping, to the face of his friend. In his heart, he felt the stillness at last.

Wisdom cannot be spoken. Whenever one tries, it becomes foolishness.