The Glass Bead Game (39 page)

One day Knecht received the news of his death. He hastened to Monteport and found the old man, who had passed peacefully away, lying on his bed, the small face shrunken to a silent rune and arabesque, a magical figure no longer readable but nevertheless somehow conveying smiles and perfected happiness. Knecht spoke at the funeral, after the present Music Master and Ferromonte. He did not talk about the enlightened sage of music, nor of the man's greatness as a teacher, nor of his kindness and wisdom as the eldest member of the highest ruling body in Castalia. He spoke only of the grace of such an old age and death, of the immortal beauty of the spirit which had been revealed through him to those who had shared his last days.

We know from several statements of Knecht's that he wanted to write the former Master's biography, but official duties left him no time for such a task. He had learned to curb his own wishes. Once he remarked to one of his tutors: “It is a pity that you students aren't fully aware of the luxury and abundance in which you live. But I was exactly the same when I was still a student. We study and work, don't waste much time, and think we may rightly call ourselves industrious—but we are scarcely conscious of all we could do, all that we might make of our freedom. Then we suddenly receive a call from the hierarchy, we are needed, are given a teaching assignment, a mission, a post, and from then on move up to a higher one, and unexpectedly find ourselves caught in a network of duties that tightens the more we try to move inside it. All the tasks are in themselves small, but each one has to be carried out at its proper hour, and the day has far more tasks than hours. That is well; one would not want it to be different. But if we ever think, between classroom, Archives, secretariat, consulting room, meetings, and official journeys—if we ever think of the freedom we possessed and have lost, the freedom for self-chosen tasks, for unlimited, far-flung studies, we may well feel the greatest yearning for those days, and imagine that if we ever had such freedom again we would fully enjoy its pleasures and potentialities.”

Knecht had an extraordinary aptitude for fitting his students and officials into their proper place in the service of the hierarchy. He chose his men for every assignment, for every post, with great care. His reports on them show keen judgment, especially of character. Other officials often sought his advice on the handling of personality problems. There was, for example, the case of the student Petrus, the former Music Master's last favorite pupil. This young man, the typical quiet fanatic, had done remarkably well in his unique role of companion, nurse, and adoring disciple. But when this role came to its natural end with the former Magister's death, he lapsed into melancholia that was understood and tolerated for a while. Soon, however, his symptoms began to cause Music Master Ludwig, the present director of Monteport, serious concern. For Petrus insisted on remaining on in the pavilion where the deceased Master had spent his last days. He guarded the cottage, continued to keep its furnishings and arrangements painstakingly in their former state, and especially regarded the room in which the master had died, with its armchair, deathbed, and harpsichord, as a sort of shrine. In addition to caring for these relics, his only other activity consisted in tending the grave of his beloved Master. His vocation, he felt, was to devote his life to a permanent cult of the dead man, watching over the places associated with his memory as if he were a temple servant. Perhaps he hoped to see them become places of pilgrimage. During the first few days after the funeral he had taken no food; afterward he limited himself to the tiny and rare meals with which the Master had been content during his last days. It appeared that he intended to go so far in
imitatio
of the Master that he would soon follow him into death. Since he could not sustain this for long, however, he shifted to the mode of conduct which would presumably entitle him to become guardian of house and grave, permanent custodian of this memorial site. From all this it was plain that the young man, naturally obstinate in any case and having enjoyed for some time a distinctive position, was bent on holding on to that position and had not the slightest desire to return to the commonplace duties of life; no doubt he secretly felt that he could no longer cope with them. “By the way, that fellow Petrus who was assigned to the late Master is cracked,” Ferromonte reported acidly in a note to Knecht.

Strictly speaking, a Monteport music student was no concern of the Waldzell Magister, who should have felt no call to add to his own responsibilities by interfering in a Monteport affair. But things went from bad to worse. The unfortunate young man had to be removed by force from his pavilion. His agitation did not subside with the passage of time. Distraught, still mourning, he had lapsed into a state of withdrawal in which he could not very well be subjected to the usual punishments for infractions of discipline. And since his superiors were well aware of Knecht's benevolent feelings toward the young man, the Music Master's office applied to him for advice and intervention. In the meantime the refractory student was being kept under observation in a cell in the infirmary.

Knecht had been reluctant to become involved in this troublesome affair. But once he had given some thought to it and had decided to try to help, he took the matter vigorously in hand. He offered to take Petrus under his wing as an experiment, on condition that the young man be treated as if he were well and permitted to travel alone. With his letter to the Music Master's office he enclosed a brief, cordial invitation to Petrus, asking him to pay a short visit if it were convenient, and hinting that he hoped for an account of the former Music Master's last days.

The Monteport doctor hesitantly consented. Knecht's invitation was handed to the student, and as Knecht had rightly guessed, nothing could have been more welcome to the young man, trapped as he was in the deplorable situation he had created for himself, than a swift escape from the scene of his difficulties. Petrus immediately agreed to undertake the journey, accepted a proper meal, was given a travel pass, and set out on foot. He arrived in Waldzell in fair condition. On Knecht's orders, everyone ignored the jitteriness in his manner. He was put up among the guests of the Archive and found himself treated neither as a delinquent nor as a patient, nor for that matter as a person in any way out of the ordinary. He was after all not so ill as to fail to appreciate this pleasant atmosphere; and he took the road back into life thus offered him, although during the several weeks of his stay he remained a considerable nuisance to the Magister. Knecht assigned him the sham task of recording, under strict supervision, his Master's last musical exercises and studies, and in addition systematically employed him for minor routine jobs in the Archives. This on the pretext that the Archives personnel were overburdened at the moment, and it would be good of him to lend a hand whenever he had the time.

In short, the temporary deviant was guided back to the right road. After he had calmed down and seemed ready to fit himself into the hierarchy, Knecht began exerting a direct educational influence upon him. In a series of brief talks the Magister relieved the youth of his delusion that setting up the deceased Music Master as the subject of an idolatrous cult was either a religious act or one tenable in Castalia. Since, however, Petrus was still terror-stricken at the prospect of returning to Monteport, although he seemed otherwise cured, a post of assistant music teacher in one of the lower elite schools was provided for him. In that capacity he henceforth behaved quite acceptably.

We might cite a good many other examples of Knecht's psychiatric and educative work. Moreover, there were many young students who fell under the gentle sway of his personality and were won over to a life in the genuine spirit of Castalia much the way Knecht himself had been won over by the Music Master. All these examples show us the Magister Ludi as anything but a problematical character; all are testimonies to his soundness and balance. But his kindly efforts to help unstable and imperiled personalities such as Petrus or Tegularius do suggest an unusually alert sensitivity to such maladies or susceptibilities on the part of Castalians. They suggest that since his first “awakening” he had remained keenly alive to the problems and the dangers inherent in Castalian life. No doubt the majority of our fellow citizens thoughtlessly or smugly refuse to see these dangers; but he in his forthright courage could not take such a course. And presumably he could never follow the practice of most of his associates in authority, who were cognizant of these dangers but as a matter of principle treated them as nonexistent. He recognized their existence, and his familiarity with the early history of Castalia led him to regard life in the midst of such dangers as a struggle, and one which he affirmed. He loved these very perils, whereas most Castalians considered their community, and the lives they led within it, as a pure idyll. From Father Jacobus's works on the Benedictine Order he had also absorbed the concept of an order as a militant community, and of piety as a combative attitude. “No noble and exalted life exists,” he once said, “without knowledge of devils and demons, and without continual struggle against them.”

In our Province explicit friendships among the holders of high office are most rare. We need therefore not be surprised that during his first years in office Knecht entered into no such ties with any of his colleagues. He cordially liked the classical philologist in Keuperheim, and felt profound esteem for the directors of the Order; but in these relationships personal affection is almost entirely excluded, private concerns objectified, so that intimacies beyond the joint work on an official level are scarcely possible. Nevertheless, one such friendship did develop.

The secret archives of the Board of Educators are not at our disposal. What we know about Knecht's demeanor at sessions of the Board, or how he voted, must therefore be deduced from his occasional remarks to friends. During his early days in office he tended to keep silent at such meetings, but although later on he spoke up, he seems to have done so only rarely, unless he himself had launched a motion. Mention is made of how quickly he learned the tone traditional at the summit of our hierarchy, and the gracefulness, ingenuity, and wit with which he used these forms. As is well known, the heads of our hierarchy, the Masters and directors of the Order, treat each other in a carefully sustained ceremonial style. Moreover, it has been their custom, or inclination, or secret ruling—since when, we cannot say—to employ more and more carefully polished and strict courtesies, the greater their differences of opinion and the larger the controversial question under discussion. Presumably this formality handed down from the past serves, along with any other functions it may have, primarily as a safety valve. The extremely courteous tone of the debates protects the persons engaged from yielding to passion and helps them preserve impeccable bearing; but in addition it upholds the dignity of the Order and of the high authorities themselves. It drapes them in the robes of ceremonial and conceals them behind veils of sanctity. Such no doubt is the rationale of this elaborate art of exchanging compliments, which the students often make fun of. Before Knecht's time his predecessor, Magister Thomas von der Trave, had been a particularly admired master of this art. Knecht cannot really be called his successor in it, still less his imitator; rather, he was more a disciple of the Chinese, so that his mode of courtesy was less pointed and peppered with irony. But he too was considered among his colleagues unsurpassed in the art of courtesy.

NINE

A Conversation

We have come to that point in our study when we must focus our attention entirely upon the remarkable change of course which occupied the last years of the Master's life and led to his bidding farewell to his office and the Province, his crossing into a different sphere of life, and his death. Although he administered his office with exemplary faithfulness up to the moment of his departure, and to his last day enjoyed the affectionate confidence of his pupils and colleagues, we shall not continue our description of his conduct of the office now that we see him already weary of it in his innermost soul, and turning toward other aims. He had already explored all the possibilities the office provided for the utilization of his energies and had reached the point at which great men must leave the path of tradition and obedient subordination and, trusting to supreme, indefinable powers, strike out on new, trackless courses where experience is no guide.

When he became conscious that this had happened, he dispassionately examined his situation and what might be done to change it. He had arrived, at an unusually early age, upon that summit which was all that a talented and ambitious Castalian could imagine as worth striving for. Yet neither ambition nor exertion had brought him there. He had neither tried for his high honor nor consciously adapted himself to it. It had come almost against his will, for an inconspicuous, independent scholar's life free of official duties would have been much more in keeping with his own desires. He did not especially prize many of the benefits and powers that followed from his position. In fact, within a short time after he assumed office, he seemed already to have tired of some of these distinctions and privileges. In particular, he always regarded political and administrative work in the highest Board as a burden, although he gave himself to it with unfailing conscientiousness. Even the special, the characteristic and unique task of his position, the training of an elite group of perfected Glass Bead Game players, for all the joy it sometimes brought him, and despite the fact that this elite took great pride in their Magister, seems in the long run to have been more of a burden than a pleasure to him. What delighted him and truly satisfied him was teaching, and in this he discovered by experience that both his pleasure and his success were the greater, the younger his pupils were. Hence he felt it as a loss that his post brought to him only youths and adults instead of children.