HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

dessen Gesicht und Schicksal sie beschaftigte, an den Tod, an ihre Kindheit,
und dafi sie beide im selben Augenblick, wenn der Flufi ihnen etwas Gutes
gesagt hatte, einander anblickten, beide genau dasselbe denkend, beide
begluckt iiber dieselbe Antwort auf dieselbe Frage. (SW 3, 444)
It is the Voice7 of the river that triggers the insights of the two boatmen. The
river is a fundamental symbol in Siddhartha and one of Hesse's most powerful
metaphors of simultaneity, along with the musical analogy of the two-voice melody.
The river which, despite its constant flow, projects an image of sameness, appears in
early writings such as 'Sor aqua' (1904): 'Dies dunkle Rauschen des Weggenossen,
dies ewige gewaltige Ziehen ohne Rast und Ende, woneben alle meine Wanderschaft
nur eine kurze Reise war!' (SW 6, 300). The metaphor here, however, does not reach
the thematic complexity and the poetic richness of Siddhartha:
»Ja, Siddhartha«, sprach er [Vasudeva]. »Es ist doch dieses, was du meinst:
dafi der Flufi iiberall zugleich ist, am Ursprung und an der Miindung, am
Wasserfall, an der Fahre, an der Stromschnelle, im Meer, im Gebirge, iiberall,
zugleich, und dafi es fur ihn nur Gegenwart gibt, nicht den Schatten
Vergangenheit, nicht den Schatten Zukunft?« (SW 3, 443)
As we noted above in this section, the river, to which Siddhartha compares his life,
expresses continuity and makes all moments of his life vibrate in unison in his mind.
Siddhartha then realizes that 'all is always now' (Eliot 1944, 'Burnt Norton' V, 8),
which also means that time is an illusion. 36 This is, however, not the only teaching
Siddhartha learns from the river; ironically, he apprehends that the only escape from
the yoke of time is to be found within time itself, in the docile acceptance of each
instant:
It is the doctrine that knowledge resides in the present time and place, and
that from one's position in the Here and Now, in the depths of the fleeting
instant, one can discover all there is to know. Wisdom lies not in denying the
present, nor in trying to exploit it, but in accepting it as the repository for
truths that are not apparent in the visible context of a single moment. (Shaw,
216-17)
36 Through the river, moreover, the river of life, this paradox of endless change and changeless presence,
Siddhartha comes to penetrate the illusion of time: time, Klingsor's demon, does not really exist' (Boulby, 148).
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