Kamala came along the pilgrim road with her young son. She had given up the garden, she told Vasudeva. She was going to find the Buddha before he died.

On the bank of the river, a small brown snake bit her. She lay down in the hut of the ferrymen. She saw Siddhartha. She smiled, weakly — the old, knowing smile — and she said: So. And the boy, she said. The boy is yours.

Then she died.

The boy was eleven, and spoiled, and angry. He hated the poor hut. He hated the rice, the silence, the river. He hated most of all the quiet, tired man who called himself his father. He screamed. He refused to work. He ran away. Siddhartha ran after him, terrified — and Vasudeva, who had no son, watched the strong calm ferryman be utterly undone by a child.

One day the boy ran away for the last time. Siddhartha, half-mad with worry, followed him down the path toward the city. Vasudeva quietly followed Siddhartha. And it was Vasudeva, at last, who turned him around.

Let him go, said Vasudeva. He is not our river. He is his own.

He is not our river. He is his own.