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Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
page 43 of 131 (32%)
eyes, with contracted pupils, begging with desire.

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.
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