A Thousand Relationships
Govinda no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha. Instead he saw other faces, many faces, a long series, a continuous stream of faces -hundreds, thousands, which all came and disappeared and yet all seemed to be there at the same time (…).He saw the face of a fish, of a carp, with tremendous painfully opened mouth, a dying fish with dimmed eyes. He saw the face of a newly born child, red and full of wrinkles, ready to cry. He saw the face of a murderer, saw him plunge a knife into the body of a man; at the same moment he saw this criminal kneeling down, bound, and his head cut off by an executioner. He saw the naked bodies of men and women in the postures and transports of passionate love. (…) He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships to each other, all helping each other, loving, hating and destroying each other(…)
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha