The Glass Bead Game (53 page)

Again Alexander closed his eyes for a few seconds. He felt battered by the revelations coming all at once from this incomprehensible man.

“Forever?” he said. “Then you are thinking of not returning to your post at all? I must say, you are a master of surprises. One question, if I may ask it: Do you still regard yourself as Magister Ludi?”

Joseph Knecht picked up the small casket he brought with him.

“I was until yesterday,” he said, “and consider myself liberated today by returning to you, as representative of the Board, the seals and keys. The insignia are intact, and when you go to inspect things in the Players' Village you will find everything in order.”

Slowly, the President of the Order rose. He looked weary and suddenly aged.

“Let us leave your casket standing here for the present,” he said drily. “If by receiving the seals I am supposed to be accepting your resignation, let me remind you that I am not so empowered. At least a third of the Board would have to be present. You used to have so much feeling for the old customs and forms that I cannot adjust so quickly to this new mode of doing things. Perhaps you will be kind enough to give me until tomorow before we go on with our conversation?”

“I am completely at your disposal, your Reverence. You have known me and known my respect for you for a good many years. Believe me, that has not changed in the slightest. You are the only person I am bidding good-by to before leaving the Province, and I am addressing you now not only in your capacity as President of the Order. Just as I have returned the seals and keys to your hands, I also hope you will release me from my oath as a member of the Order, once we have discussed everything fully,
Domine.”

Alexander met his eyes with a sorrowful, searching look, and stifled a sigh. “Leave me now. You have given me cares enough for one day and provided material enough for reflection. Let that do for today. Tomorrow we shall speak further; return here about an hour before noon.”

He dismissed the Magister with a courteous gesture, and that gesture, full of resignation, full of deliberate politeness of the kind no longer meant for a colleague, but for a total stranger, pained the Glass Bead Game Master more than anything he had said.

The attendant who fetched Knecht for the evening meal a while later led him to a guest table and informed him that Master Alexander had withdrawn for meditation and assumed that the Magister would not wish company tonight, and that a guest room had been prepared for him.

The Magister Ludi's visit and announcement had taken Alexander completely by surprise. Ever since he had edited the Board's reply to the circular letter, he had of course counted on Knecht's turning up sooner or later, and had thought of the ensuing discussion with faint uneasiness. But that Magister Knecht, noted for his exemplary obedience, his cultivated formalities, his modesty and profound tact, could one day descend on him without warning, resign his office on his own initiative and without previously consulting the Board, and throw over all usage and tradition in this startling manner—these were acts he would have considered absolutely impossible. Granted, Knecht's manner, tone, and language, his unobtrusive courtesy, were the same as ever; but how appalling and offensive, how novel and surprising, and above all how totally un-Castalian were the substance and the spirit of everything he said. No one hearing and seeing the Magister Ludi would have suspected him of being ill, overworked, irritated, and not completely master of himself. The scrutiny which the Board had recently ordered in Waldzell had turned up not the slightest vestige of disturbance, disorder, or neglect in the life and work of the Players' Village. And nevertheless this appalling man, until yesterday the dearest of his colleagues, now stood here and deposited the chest with the insignia of office as if it were a suitcase, declaring that he had ceased to be Magister, had ceased to be a member of the Board, a brother of the Order and a Castalian, and had dropped in only to say good-by. This was the most disturbing situation his office as President of the Order had ever involved him in, and he had had great difficulty in preserving his outward composure.

And what now? Should he resort to force—place the Magister Ludi under house arrest, say, and at once, this very evening, send emergency messages to all members of the Board and call a meeting? Was there any objection to his doing so? Was that not the most logical and correct procedure? It was, and yet something within him protested. What would he really achieve by such measures? Nothing but humiliation for Magister Knecht, and nothing at all for Castalia; at most some alleviation for himself who would no longer have to face this ugly and complex situation alone, bearing all the responsibility. If anything could still be saved out of this vexatious affair, if any appeal to Knecht's sense of honor were possible and if it were conceivable that he might change his mind, such an outcome could only be achieved in a private interview. The two of them, Knecht and Alexander, would have to fight out this bitter conflict to the end—no one else. And even as he thought this he had to concede that basically Knecht had acted correctly and honorably by refraining from further contact with the Board, which he no longer recognized, but coming personally to consult him, the President, for the final struggle and leave-taking. This man Joseph Knecht, even when he did something so outrageous and repulsive, nevertheless acted with taste and tact.

Master Alexander decided to trust to his own powers of persuasion and leave the entire official apparatus out of the affair. Only now, after he had come to this decision, did he begin to reflect upon the details of the matter and to ask himself to what extent the Magister's action was right or wrong—for after all, Knecht seemed to have no doubt of the integrity and justness of his incredible step. Now that he tried to classify the Magister Ludi's audacious plan and determine where it stood legally—for no one knew the rules of the Order better than he—he came to the surprising conclusion that Joseph Knecht was not in fact violating the letter of the rules. Granted, for decades no one had ever tested the relevant clauses, but the rules did provide that every member of the Order was at liberty to resign any time he so desired. Of course he would at the same time renounce all his privileges and separate himself from the Castalian community. If Knecht now returned his seals, informed the Order of his resignation, and betook himself into the world, he was to be sure doing something unheard of in living memory, something highly unusual, alarming, and perhaps unseemly, but he was committing no infraction of the rules. Incomprehensible the step might be, but it was not illegal in any formal way. And that he chose not to take it behind the President's back, but was ready to come and announce his decision, was in fact more than punctilious.—But how had this venerated man, one of the pillars of the hierarchy, come to such a decision? After all, what he was planning was nothing short of desertion. How could he invoke the written rules when a hundred unwritten but no less sacred and self-evident ties should have kept him from taking this step?

Alexander heard a clock strike. He wrenched himself away from his profitless thoughts, took his bath, spent ten minutes on careful breathing exercises, and then went to his meditation cell in order to store up strength and tranquility for an hour before going to sleep. He would think no more of this matter until the morrow.

Next morning a young servant of the directorate's guest house led the Magister Ludi to the President, and was thus privy to the way the two men greeted each other. Accustomed as the youth was to the manner prevalent among these masters of meditation and self-discipline, he was nevertheless struck by something in the appearance, the bearing, and the tone of these two notables as they greeted each other. There was something new, an extraordinary degree of composure and clarity. It was, so he told us, not quite the usual salutation between two of the highest dignitaries of the Order, which might be either a serene and casual ceremony or an act of formal but joyful festivity—although occasionally it also turned into a competition in courtesy, deference, and stressed humility. It was rather as though a stranger were being received, say a great master of yoga come from afar to pay his respects to the President of the Order and cross swords with him. In word and gesture both men were exceedingly modest and sparing, but their eyes and their expressions, though tranquil, collected, and composed, were charged with a hidden tension, as though both were luminescent or carrying an electric current. Our informant did not have the opportunity to see or hear any more of the encounter. The two vanished into the office, presumably going to Master Alexander's study, and remained there for several hours. No one was permitted to disturb them. What record we have of their conversations comes from accounts set down on various occasions by the honorable Delegate Designori, to whom Joseph Knecht related some details.

“You took me by surprise yesterday,” the President began, “and very nearly disconcerted me. In the meantime I have been able to reflect upon the matter somewhat. My viewpoint has not changed, of course; I am a member of the Board and the directorate of the Order. According to the letter of the Rule, you have the right to announce your withdrawal and resign your post. You have come to the point of regarding your post as burdensome and of feeling an attempt to live outside the Order as a necessity. What if I were now to propose that you make this trial, but not in terms of your categorical decisions—rather in the form of a prolonged or even an indeterminate leave? Actually, this is what your petition sought to accomplish.”

“Not entirely,” Knecht said. “If my petition had been approved, I would certainly have remained in the Order, but not in office. Your kind proposal would be an evasion. Incidentally, Waldzell and the Glass Bead Game would scarcely be well served by a Magister who was absent on leave for a long or indeterminate period of time and who might or might not return. Moreover, if he did return after a year or two, his skills in the conduct of his office and in his discipline, the Glass Bead Game, would only have suffered, not advanced.”

Alexander: “He might have profited in all sorts of ways. Perhaps he would have learned that the world outside is not what he imagined and needs him no more than he does it. He might come back reassured and glad to remain in old and well-tested paths.”

“Your kindness goes very far indeed. I am grateful for it; nevertheless I cannot accept it. What I am seeking is not so much fulfillment of idle curiosity or of a hankering for worldly life, but experience without reservations. I do not want to go out into the world with insurance in my pocket, in case I am disappointed. I don't want to be a prudent traveler taking a bit of a look at the world. On the contrary, I crave risk, difficulty, and danger; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for deprivations and suffering. May I ask you not to press your kind proposal, and altogether to abandon any attempt to sway me and coax me back? It would lead to nothing. My visit with you would lose its value and its solemnity for me if it now brought me approval of my petition after all, when I no longer desire that. I have not stood still since writing that petition; the way I have embarked on is now my one and all, my law, my home, my service.”

With a sigh, Alexander nodded assent. “Let us assume then,” he said patiently, “that you in fact cannot be influenced or dissuaded. Let us assume that contrary to all appearances you are deaf to all representations, all reason, all kindness, that you are running amok or going berserk, so that people must simply keep out of your path. For the time being I will not try to change your mind or influence you. But tell me what you came here to tell me. Let me hear the story of your defection. Explain the acts and decisions which are to us so shocking. Whether what you have to offer is a confession, a justification, or an indictment, I want to hear it.”

Knecht nodded. “Running amok though I am, I pause to express my gladness. I have no indictments to make. What I wish to say—if only it were not so hard, so incredibly hard to put into words—seems to me a justification; to you it may be a confession.”

He leaned back in his chair and looked up, where traces of Hirsland's former days as a monastery showed in the vault of the ceiling, in sparse, dreamlike lines and colors, patterns of flowers and ornamentation.

“The idea that even a Magister could tire of his post and resign it first came to me only a few months after my appointment as Magister Ludi. One day I was sitting reading a little book by my once famous predecessor Ludwig Wassermaler, a journal of the official year, in which he offers guidance to his successors. There I read his admonition to give timely thought to the public Glass Bead Game for the coming year. If you felt no eagerness for it and lacked ideas, he wrote, you should try to put yourself into the right mood by concentration. With my strong awareness of being the youngest Magister, I smiled when I read this. With the brashness of youth I was a bit amused at the anxieties of the old man who had written it. But still I also heard in it a note of gravity and dread, of something menacing and oppressive. Reflecting on this, I decided that if ever the day came when the thought of the next festival game caused me anxiety instead of gladness, fear instead of pride, I would not struggle to work out a new festival game, but would at once resign and return the emblems of my office to the Board. This was the first time that such a thought presented itself to me. At the time I had just come through the great exertions of mastering my office, and had all my sails spread to the wind, so to speak. In my heart I did not really believe in the possibility that I too might someday be an old man, tired of the work and of life, that I might some day be unequal to the task of tossing off ideas for new Glass Bead Games. Nevertheless, I made the decision at that time. You knew me well in those days, your Reverence, better perhaps than I knew myself. You were my adviser and father confessor during that first difficult period in office, and had taken your departure from Waldzell only a short while before.”