The Glass Bead Game (28 page)

Knecht's entry, then, was a formally rather than a psychologically constructed Game. Possibly he wanted to prove to his superiors, and to himself as well, that in spite of his elementary course and diplomatic mission in Mariafels, he had lost none of his deftness, elegance, and virtuosity and had not suffered from lack of practice. If so, he succeeded in proving it. Since the final elaboration and clean copy of his Game outline could only be completed in the Waldzell Archives, he entrusted this task to his friend Tegularius, who was himself participating in the competition. Joseph was able to hand his drafts to his friend personally, and to discuss them with him, as well as to go over Tegularius's own outline; for Fritz was finally able to come to the monastery for three days. Magister Thomas had at last authorized the visit, after Knecht had made two previous requests in vain.

Eager as Tegularius had been to come, and for all the curiosity he, as an insular Castalian, had about life in the monastery, he felt extremely uncomfortable there. Sensitive as he was, he nearly fell ill amid all the alien impressions and among these friendly but simple, healthy, and somewhat rough-hewn people, not one of whom would have had the slightest understanding for his thoughts, cares, and problems. “You live here as if you were on another planet,” he said to his friend, “and I don't see how you have been able to stand it for three years. I certainly admire you for that. To be sure, your Fathers are polite enough toward me, but I feel rejected and repelled by everything here. Nothing meets me halfway, nothing is natural and easy, nothing can be assimilated without resistance and pain. If I had to live here for two weeks, I would feel as if I were in hell.”

Knecht had a difficult time with him. Moreover, it was disconcerting to witness, for the first time as an onlooker, how alien the two Orders, the two worlds were to one another. He felt, too, that his oversensitive friend with his air of anxious helplessness was not making a good impression among the monks. Nevertheless, they revised their respective Game plans for the competition thoroughly, each critically examining the other's work. When, after an hour of this Knecht went over to Father Jacobus in the other wing, or to a meal, he had the feeling that he was being suddenly transported from his native country to an entirely different land, with a different soil and air, different climate, and different stars.

After Fritz had departed, Joseph drew out Father Jacobus on his impressions. “I hope,” Jacobus said, “that the majority of Castalians are more like you than your friend. You have shown us an inexperienced, overbred, weakly, and nevertheless, I am afraid, arrogant kind of person. I shall go on taking you as more representative; otherwise I should certainly be unjust to your kind. For this unfortunate, sensitive, overintelligent, fidgety person could spoil one's respect for your whole Province.”

“Well,” Knecht replied, “I imagine that in the course of the centuries you noble Benedictines have now and then had sickly, physically feeble, but for that very reason mentally sound and able men, such as my friend. I suppose it was imprudent of me to have invited him here, where everyone has a sharp eye for his weaknesses but no sense of his great virtues. He has done me a great kindness by coming.” And he explained to Father Jacobus about his joining in the competition. The Benedictine was pleased with Knecht for defending his friend. “Well answered,” he said with a friendly laugh. “But it strikes me that all of your friends are difficult to get along with.”

He enjoyed Knecht's bewilderment and astonished expression for a moment, then added casually: “This time I am referring to someone outside Castalia. Have you heard anything new about your friend Plinio Designori?”

Joseph's astonishment increased; stunned, he asked for an explanation.

It seemed that Designori had written a political polemic professing violently anticlerical views, and incidentally strongly attacking Father Jacobus. Through friends in the Catholic press, Jacobus had obtained information on Designori, and in this way had learned of Plinio's schooldays in Castalia and his relationship to Knecht.

Joseph asked to borrow Plinio's article; and after he had read it he and Father Jacobus had their first discussion of current politics. A few more, but only a few, followed. “It was strange and almost alarming,” Joseph wrote to Ferromonte, “for me to see the figure of our Plinio—and by-the-by my own—suddenly standing on the stage of the world's politics. This was something I had never imagined.” As it turned out, Father Jacobus spoke of Plinio's polemic in rather appreciative terms. At any rate, he showed no sign of having taken offense. He praised Designori's style, commenting that his training in the elite school showed up clearly; in the run of everyday politics, one had to settle for a far lower level of intelligence, he said.

About this time Ferromonte sent Knecht a copy of the first part of his subsequently famous work entitled
The Reception and Absorption of Slavic Folk Music by German Art Music from Joseph Haydn on.
In Knecht's letter of acknowledgment we find, among other things: “You have drawn a cogent conclusion from your studies, which I was privileged to share for a while. The two chapters dealing with Schubert, and especially with the quartets, are among the soundest examples of modern musicology that I have read. Think of me sometimes; I am very far from any such harvest as you have reaped. Although I have reason to be content with my life here—for my mission in Mariafels appears to be meeting with some success—I do occasionally feel that being so far from the Province and the Waldzell circle to which I belong is distinctly oppressive. I am learning a tremendous amount here, but adding neither to my certainties nor my professional skills, only to my problems. I must grant, though, a widening of horizon. However, I now feel much easier about the insecurity, strangeness, despondency, distraitness, self-doubt, and other ills that frequently assailed me during my first two years here. Tegularius was here recently—for only three days, but much as he had looked forward to seeing me and curious though he was about Mariafels, by the second day he could scarcely bear it any longer, so depressed and out of place did he feel. Since a monastery is after all a rather sheltered, peaceful world, and favorable enough to things of the spirit, in no way like a jail, a barracks, or a factory, I conclude from my experience that people from our dear Province are a good deal more pampered and oversensitive than we realize.”

At about the date of this letter to Carlo, Knecht persuaded Father Jacobus to address a brief letter to the directorate of the Castalian Order acquiescing in the proposed diplomatic step. To this Jacobus added the request that they would permit “the Glass Bead Game player Joseph Knecht, who is universally popular here” and who was kindly giving him a private course
de rebus castaliensibus,
to remain for a while longer. The Castalian authorities were, of course, glad to oblige. Joseph, who had been thinking that he was still very far from any such “harvest,” received a commendation, signed by the directorate and by Monsieur Dubois, congratulating him on the success of his mission. But what struck him as most important about this honorific document and what gave him the greatest pleasure (he reported it in well-nigh triumphant tones in a note to Fritz) was a short sentence to the effect that the Order had been informed by the Magister Ludi of his desire to return to the Vicus Lusorum, and was disposed to grant this request after completion of his present assignment. Joseph also read this passage aloud to Father Jacobus and now confessed how greatly he had feared possible permanent banishment from Castalia and being sent to Rome. Laughing, Father Jacobus commented: “Yes, my friend, there is something about Orders; one prefers living in their bosom rather than out on the periphery, let alone in exile. You've touched the soiled fringes of politics here, but now go right ahead and forget it, for you are not a politician. But do not break your troth with history, even though it may remain forever a secondary subject and a hobby for you. For you had the makings of a historian. And now let us profit by our time together, as long as I have you.”

Joseph Knecht seems to have made little use of his privilege to pay more frequent visits to Waldzell. However, he listened on the radio to one seminar and to a good many lectures and games. So also, from afar, sitting in his excellent guest room in the monastery, he took part in that “solemnity” in the festival hall of the Vicus Lusorum at which the results of the prize competition were announced. He had handed in a rather impersonal and not at all revolutionary, but solid and elegant piece of work whose value he knew, and he was prepared for an honorable mention or a third or second prize. To his surprise he now heard that he had been awarded first prize, and even before surprise had given way to delight, the spokesman for the Magister Ludi's office continued reading in his beautiful low voice and named Tegularius as winner of the second prize. It was certainly a moving and rapturous experience that the two of them should emerge from this competition hand in hand, as the crowned winners. He sprang to his feet without listening to the rest, and ran down the stairs and through the echoing corridors out into the open air.

In a letter to the former Music Master, written at this time, we may read: “I am very happy, revered Master, as you can imagine. First the success of my mission and its commendation by the directorate of the Order, together with the prospect—so important to me—of soon returning home to friends and to the Glass Bead Game, instead of being kept in the diplomatic service; and now this first prize for a Game whose formal aspects I did take pains with, but which for good reasons by no means drained me of everything I had to contribute. And on top of that the joy of sharing this success with my friend—it really was too much all at once. I am happy, yes, but I could not well say that I am merry. Because of the dearth of the preceding period—at any rate what seemed to me a dearth—my real feeling is that these fulfillments are coming rather too suddenly and too abundantly. There is a measure of unease mingled with my gratitude, as if the vessel is so filled to the brim that only another drop is needed to tilt it. But, please, consider that I have not said this; in this situation every word is already too much.”

As we shall see, the vessel filled to the brim was destined to have more than just one additional drop added to it. But at the moment Joseph Knecht devoted himself to his happiness, and the concomitant unease, with great intensity, as if he had a premonition of the impending great change. For Father Jacobus, too, these few months were a happy, an exuberant time. He was sorry that he would soon be losing this disciple and associate; and in their hours of work together, still more in their free-ranging conversations, he tried to bequeath to him as much as he could of the understanding he had acquired during a long life of hard work and hard thinking, understanding of the heights and depths in the lives of men and nations. He also had some things to say about the consequences of Knecht's mission, assessing its meaning, and the value of amity and political concord between Rome and Castalia. He recommended that Joseph study the epoch which had seen the founding of the Castalian Order as well as the gradual recovery of Rome after a humiliating time of tribulation. He also recommended two books on the Reformation and schism of the sixteenth century, but strongly urged him to make a principle of studying the primary sources. He advised Joseph to confine himself to graspable segments of a field in preference to reading ponderous tomes on world history. Finally, Father Jacobus made no bones about his profound mistrust of all philosophies of history.

SIX

Magister Ludi

Knecht had decided to postpone his final return to Waldzell until the spring, the time of the great public Glass Bead Game, the
Ludus anniversarius
or
sollemnis.
The era when annual Games lasted for weeks and were attended by dignitaries and representatives from all over the world—what we may call the great age in the memorable history of these Games—already belonged forever to the past. But these spring sessions, with the one solemn Game that usually lasted from ten days to two weeks, still remained the great festive event of the year for all of Castalia. It was a festival not without its high religious and moral importance, for it brought together the advocates of all the sometimes disparate tendencies of the Province in an act of symbolic harmony. It established a truce between the egotistic ambitions of the several disciplines, and recalled to mind the unity which embraced their variety. For believers it possessed the sacramental force of true consecration; for unbelievers it was at least a substitute for religion; and for both it was a bath in the pure springs of beauty. The Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach had once upon a time—not so much in the time they were written as in the century following their rediscovery—been in similar fashion a genuine consecratory act for some of the performers and audience, a form of worship and religious substitute for others, and for all together a solemn manifestation of art and of the
Creator spiritus.

Knecht had had scant difficulty obtaining the consent of both the monks and his home authorities for his decision. He could not quite determine the nature of his position after his reassignment to the little republic of the Vicus Lusorum, but he suspected that he would not long be left unoccupied and would soon be burdened and honored with some new office or mission. For the present he looked forward happily to returning home, to seeing his friends and participating in the approaching festival. He enjoyed his last days with Father Jacobus, and accepted with dignity and good humor the rather demonstrative kindnesses of the Abbot and monks when the time came for farewells. Then he left, feeling some sadness at parting from a place he had grown fond of and from a stage in his life he was now leaving behind, but also in a mood of festive anticipation, for although he lacked guidance and companions, he had, on his own initiative, scrupulously undertaken the whole series of meditation exercises prescribed as preparations for the festival Game. He had not been able to prevail on Father Jacobus to accept the Magister Ludi's formal invitation to attend the annual Game and accompany him, but this had not affected his good spirits; he understood the old anti-Castalian's reserved attitude, and he himself for the moment felt entirely relieved of all duties and restrictions and ready to surrender his whole mind to the impending ceremonies.