FIVE

 

THE MISSION

 

KNECHT'S FIRST STAY at the monastery lasted two years.  At this time he was in his thirty-seventh year.  One morning, some two months after his long letter to Dubois, he was called into the Abbot's office.  He expected the affable Abbot would want to chat a bit about Chinese, and made his appearance promptly.  Gervasius came forward to meet him, a letter in hand.

        "I have been honoured with a commission for you, my esteemed friend," he said gaily in his amiably patronizing manner, and promptly dropped into the ironically teasing tone that had developed as an expression of the still unqualified amity between the religious and the Castalian Orders - the tone that was actually a creation of Father Jacobus.  "Incidentally, my respects to your Magister Ludi.  What letters he writes!  The honourable gentleman has written to me in Latin, Heaven knows why.  When you Castalians do something, one never knows whether you intend a courtesy or mockery, an honour or a rap on the knuckles.  At any rate, the venerable dominus has written to me in the kind of Latin that no-one in our whole order could manage at this time, except possibly Father Jacobus.  It's a Latin that might have come directly out of the school of Cicero, but laced with a carefully measured dash of Church Latin - and of course it's again impossible to tell whether that is intended naively as bait for us padres, or meant ironically, or simply springs from an irresistible impulse to playact, stylize, and embellish.  At any rate, his honour writes that your esteemed authorities wish to see and embrace you once again, and all to determine to what extent your long stay among semi-barbarians like us has had a morally and stylistically corrupting effect upon you.  In brief, if I have correctly interpreted the lengthy epistle, a leave has been granted you, and I have been requested to send my guest home to Waldzell for an indefinite term, but not forever; on the contrary, the authorities contemplate your returning by and by, if that seems agreeable to us.  I must beg your pardon; I am scarcely capable of appreciating all the subtleties of the letter.  Nor do I imagine that Magister Thomas expected me to.  I have been asked to transmit to you this notice; and now go and consider whether and when you wish to depart.  We shall miss you, my friend, and if you should stay away too long we shall not fail to demand your return."

        In the envelope the Abbot had given him Knecht found a terse notice from the Board informing him that a leave had been granted him both as a vacation and for consultation with his superiors, and that he was expected in Waldzell in the near future.  He need not see the current Game course for beginners through to the end unless the Abbot specifically asked him to.  The former Music Master sent his regards.  As he read that line, Joseph started and grew pensive.  How had the writer of the letter, the Magister Ludi, been asked to pass on this greeting, which in any case did not really fit the official tone of the letter?  There must have been a conference of the entire Board, to which the former Music Master had been invited.  Very well, the meetings and decisions of the Board of Educators did not concern him, but the tone of these greetings struck him as strange.  The message sounded curiously as if it were directed to an equal.  It did not matter what question had been discussed at the conference; the regards proved that the highest authorities had also talked about Joseph Knecht on that occasion.  Was something new in the offing?  Was he to be recalled?  And would this be a promotion or a setback?  But the letter spoke only of a leave.  To be sure he was eager for this leave; he would have gladly left the next day.  But at least he must say goodbye to his pupils and leave instruction for them.  Anton would be very saddened by his departure.  And he also owed a farewell visit to some of the Fathers.

        At this point he thought of Jacobus, and to his mild astonishment he felt a slight ache, an emotion, which told him that his heart was more attached to Mariafels than he had realized.  Here he lacked many of the things which he was used to, and which were dear to him; and in the course of the two years, distance and deprivation and made Castalia even more beautiful in his imagination.  But at this moment he saw clearly that what Father Jacobus meant to him was irreplaceable, and that he would miss it in Castalia.  At the same time he realized more clearly than ever how much he had learned in the monastery.  Because of his experiences here, he looked forward with rejoicing and confidence to the journey to Waldzell, to reunions, to the Glass Bead Game, and his holiday.  But his happiness would have been far less were it not for the prospect of returning.

        Coming to an abrupt resolution, he called on Father Jacobus.  He told him of his recall, and of his surprise to find underneath his pleasure at going home and seeing friends a joyful anticipation of returning.  This joy, he said respectfully, was chiefly connected with Father Jacobus himself.  Therefore he had summoned up his courage and was venturing to ask a great favour: when he returned, would Father Jacobus be his mentor, if only for an hour or two a week?

        Father Jacobus gave a deprecating laugh, and once more came forth with elegantly sardonic compliments: a simple monk could only gape in mute admiration and shake his head in wonder at the surpassing range of Castalian culture.  But Joseph could gather that the refusal was not meant seriously, and as he shook hands in parting Father Jacobus said amiably that he could rest easy about his request, he would gladly do what he could for him, and he bade Joseph goodbye with heartfelt warmth.

        Gladly, he set out for his vacation at home, already sure in his heart that his period in the monastery had not been profitless.  At departure he felt like a boy, but he soon realized that he was no boy and no longer a youth either.  He realized that by the feelings of embarrassment and inner resistance that flooded him as soon as he tried, by a gesture, a shout, some childish act, to give vent to the mood of release and of schoolboy happiness at vacation time.  No doubt about it, the things that once had been natural and a relief, a jubilant cry to the birds in a tree, a marching song chanted aloud, swinging along the road in a light, rhythmical dance-step - these would not do any more.  They would have come off stiff and forced, would have been foolish and childish.  He felt that he was a man, young in feelings and youthful in strength, but no longer used to surrendering to the mood of the moment, no longer free, instead kept on his mettle, tied down and duty-bound - by what?  By an official post?  By the task of representing his country and his Order to the monks?  No, rather it was the Order itself, the hierarchy.  As he engaged in this sudden self-analysis, he realized that he had incomprehensibly grown into the hierarchy, become part of its structure.  His constraint came from the responsibility, from belonging to the higher collectivity.  This it was that made many young men old and many old men appear young, that held you, supported you, and at the same time deprived you of your freedom like the stake to which a sapling is tied.  This it was that took away your innocence even while it demanded ever more limpid purity.

        In Monteport he paid his respects to the former Music Master, who in his younger years had himself been a guest at Mariafels and studied Benedictine music there.  He plied Joseph with many questions about the place.  Joseph found the old man somewhat more subdued and withdrawn, but stronger and gayer in appearance than he had been at their last meeting.  The fatigue had departed from his face; it was not that he had grown younger since resigning his office, but he definitely looked handsomer and more spiritualized.  Knecht was struck by the fact that though he inquired about the organ, the chests of music manuscripts, and the choral singing in Mariafels, and even wanted to hear whether the tree in the cloister garden was still standing, he seemed to have no curiosity about Knecht's work there, the Glass Bead Game course, or the purpose of his present leave.  Before he continued his journey, however, the old man gave him a valuable hint.  "I have heard," he said with seeming jocularity, "that you have become something of a diplomat.  Not really a very nice occupation, but it seems our people are satisfied with you.  Interpret that as you like.  But if it doesn't happen to be your ambition to stay in this occupation forever, then be on your guard, Joseph.  I think they want to capture you for it.  Defend yourself; you have the right to.... No, ask me no questions; I shall not say a word more.  You will see."

        In spite of this warning, which he carried with him like a thorn in his flesh, Joseph felt something like rapture on returning to Waldzell.  It was as though Waldzell were not only home and the most beautiful place in the world, but as if it had become even lovlier and more interesting in the meanwhile; or else he was returning with fresh and keener eyes.  And this applied not only to the gates, towers, trees, and river, to the courtyards and halls and familiar faces.  During this furlough he felt a heightened receptivity to the spirit of Waldzell, to the Order and the Glass Bead Game.  It was the grateful understanding of the homecoming traveller now grown matured and wiser.  "I feel," he said to his friend Tegularius at the end of an enthusiastic eulogy on Waldzell and Castalia, "I feel as if I spent all my years here asleep, happy enough, to be sure, but unconscious.  Now I feel awake and see everything sharply and clearly, indubitable reality.  To think that two years abroad can so sharpen one's vision."

        He enjoyed his vacation as if it were a prolonged festival.  His greatest pleasure came from the games and discussions with his fellow members of the elite at the Vicus Lusorum, from seeing friends again, and from the genius loci  of Waldzell.  This soaring sense of happiness did not reach its peak, however, until after his first audience with the Glass Bead Game Master; up to then his joy had been mingled with trepidation.

        The Magister Ludi asked few questions than Knecht had anticipated.  He scarcely mentioned the Game course for beginners and Joseph's studies in the music archives.  On the other hand, he could not hear enough about Father Jacobus, referred back to him again and again, and was interested in every morsel Joseph could tell him about this man.  From the Magister's great friendliness Joseph concluded that they were satisfied with him and his mission among the Benedictines, very satisfied indeed.  His conclusion was confirmed by the conduct of Monsieur Dubois, to whom he was promptly sent by Magister Thomas.  "You've done a splendid job," Dubois said.  With a low laugh, he added: "My instinct was certainly at fault when I advised against your being sent to the monastery.  Your winning over the great Father Jacobus in addition to the Abbot, and making him more favourable towards Castalia, is a great deal - more than anyone dared to hope for."

        Two days later Magister Thomas invited Joseph, together with Dubois and the current head of the Waldzell elite school, Zbinden's successor, to dinner.  During the conversation hour after dinner the new Music Master unexpectedly turned up, as did the Archivist of the Order - two more members of the Supreme Board.  One of them took Joseph along to the guesthouse for a lengthy talk.  This invitation for the first time moved Knecht publicly into the most intimate circle of candidates for high office, and set up between himself and the average member of the Game elite a barrier which Knecht, now keenly alert to such matters, at once felt acutely.

        For the present he was given a vacation of four weeks and the customary official's pass to the guesthouses of the Province.  Although no duties were assigned to him, and he was not even asked to report, it was evident that he was under observation by his superiors.  For when he went on a few visits and outings, once to Keuperheim, once to Hirsland, and once to the College of Far Eastern Studies, invitations from the high officials in these places were immediately forthcoming.  Within those few weeks he actually became acquainted with the entire Board of the Order and with the majority of the Masters and directors of studies.  Had it not been for these highly official invitations and encounters, these outings would have betokened a return to the freedom of his years of study.  He began to cut back on the visits, chiefly out of consideration for Tegularius, who was painfully sensitive to these infringements on their time together, but also for the sake of the Glass Bead Game.  For he was very eager to participate in the newest exercises and to test himself on the latest problems.  For this, Tegularius proved to be of invaluable assistance to him.

        His other close friend, Ferromonte, had joined the staff of the new Music Master, and Joseph was able to see him only twice during this period.  He found him hard-working and happy in his work, engrossed in a major musicological task involving the persistence of Greek music in the dances and folksongs of the Balkan countries.  Enthusiastically, Ferromonte told his friend about his latest discoveries.  He had been exploring the era at the end of the eighteenth century, when baroque music was beginning to decline and was taking in new materials from Slavic folk music.

        However, Knecht spent the greater part of these holidays in Waldzell occupied with the Glass Bead Game.  With Fritz Tegularius he went over the notes Fritz had taken on a private seminar the Magister had given for advanced players during the past two semesters.  After his two years of deprivation Knecht again plunged with all his energy into the noble world of the Game, whose magic seemed to him as inseparable from his life and as indispensable to it as music.

        The last days of his vacation arrived before the Magister Ludi came around to mentioning Joseph's mission in Mariafels, and his next task for the immediate future.  He chatted casually at first, but soon changed to a more earnest and insistent tone as he told Joseph about a plan conceived by the Board which the majority of the Masters, as well as Monsieur Dubois, considered highly important: the plan to establish a permanent Castalian representative at the Holy See.  The historic moment had come, Master Thomas explained in his engaging, urbane manner, or at any rate was drawing near, for bridging the ancient gulf between Rome and the Order.  In future dangers, they would undoubtedly have common enemies, would share a common fate, and hence were natural allies.  In the long run the present state of affairs was untenable and, properly speaking, undignified.  It would not do for the two powers, whose historic task in the world was to preserve and foster the things of the spirit and the cause of peace, to go on existing side by side almost as strangers to each other.  The Roman Church had survived the shocks of the last great epoch of wars, had lived through the crises despite severe losses, and had emerged renewed and purified, whereas the secular centres of the arts and sciences had gone under in the general decline of culture.  It was out of their ruins that the Order and the Castalian ideal had arisen.  For that very reason, and because of its venerable age, it was right and proper to grant the Church precedence.  She was the older, more distinguished power, her worth tested in more and greater storms.  For the present, the problem was to awaken the Roman Catholics to greater awareness of the kinship between the two powers, and their dependence upon each other in all future crises.

        (At this point Knecht thought: "Oh, so they want to send me to Rome, possibly forever."  Mindful of the former Music Master's warning, he inwardly put himself in a posture of defence.)

        An important step forward, Master Thomas continued, had already been taken as a result of Knecht's mission in Mariafels.  In itself this mission had been only a polite gesture, imposing no obligations and undertaken without ulterior motives at the invitation of the others.  Otherwise, of course, the Board would not have sent a politically innocent Glass Bead Game player, but some younger official from Dubois's department.  But as it turned out, this experiment, this innocuous mission, had had astonishing results.  A leading mind of contemporary Catholicism, Father Jacobus, had been made acquainted with the spirit of Castalia and had come to take a favourable view of that spirit, which he had hitherto flatly rejected.  The authorities were grateful to Joseph Knecht for the part he had played.  Here lay the significance of his mission.  The further course of Knecht's work must be regarded in the light of it, since all future efforts at rapprochement would be built upon this success.  He had been granted a vacation - which could be somewhat extended if he wished - and most of the members of the higher authorities had met and talked with him.  His superiors had expressed their confidence in Knecht and had now charged the Magister Ludi to send him on a special assignment and with broader powers back to Mariafels, where he was, happily, sure of a friendly reception.

        He paused as if to allow time for a question, but Joseph only signified by a courteous gesture of submission that he was all attention and was awaiting his orders.

        "The assignment I have for you now," the Magister went on, "is the following.  We are planning, sooner or later, to establish a permanent embassy of our Order at the Vatican, if possible on a reciprocal basis.  As the younger group, we are ready to adopt a highly deferential though of course not servile attitude towards Rome; we are quite willing to accept second place and allow Rome the first.  Perhaps - I am no more sure of it than Dubois - the Pope would accept our offer straightaway.  But we cannot risk a rebuff.  As it happens, there is a man within our reach whose voice has the greatest influence in Rome: Father Jacobus.  And your assignment is to return to the Benedictine monastery, live there as you have already done, engage in studies, give an inconsequential course in the Glass Bead Game, and devote all your attention and care to slowly winning Father Jacobus over to our side and seeing to it that he promises to support our plans in Rome.  In other words, this time the goal of your mission is precisely defined.  It does not matter much how long you take to achieve it; we imagine that it will require at least a year, but it might also be two or several years.  You are by now acquainted with the Benedictine tempo and have learned to adjust to it.  Under no circumstances must we give the impression of being impatient or overeager; the affair must ripen of its own accord, right?  I hope you agree to this assignment, and that you will frankly express any objections you may have.  You may have a few days to think it over if you like."

        Knecht, for whom the assignment was not such a surprise, thanks to some recent conversations, replied that he had no need to think it over.  He obediently accepted, but added: "You know, sir, that missions of this kind are most successful when the emissary has no inner resistances and inhibitions to overcome.  I have no reluctance about accepting; I understand the importance of the task and hope I can do justice to it.  But I do feel a certain anxiety about my future.  Be so kind, Magister, as to hear me admit my entirely personal, egotistic concern.  I am a Glass Bead Game player.  As you know, due to my mission among the Benedictines I have omitted my studies of the Game for two full years.  I have learned nothing new and have neglected my art.  Now at least another year and probably more will be added.  I should not like to fall still further behind during this time.  Therefore I would like to be allowed frequent brief leaves to visit Waldzell and continual radio contact with the lectures and special exercises of your seminar for advanced players."

        "But of course," the Master said.  There was already a note of dismissal in his tone, but Knecht raised his voice and spoke of his other anxiety: that if he mission in Mariafels succeeded he might be sent to Rome or employed otherwise for diplomatic work.  "Any such prospect," he concluded, "would have a depressing effect upon me and hamper my efforts at the monastery.  For I would not at all like to be permanently consigned to the diplomatic service."

        The Magister frowned and raised his finger chidingly.  "You speak of being consigned.  Really, the word is ill chosen.  No-one here ever thought of it as a consigning, but rather as a distinction, a promotion.  I am not authorized to give you any information or make any promises in regard to the way we shall be employing you in the future.  But by a stretch of the imagination I can understand your doubts, and probably I shall be able to help you if your fears really prove to be justified.  And now listen to me: you have a certain gift for making yourself agreeable and well liked.  An enemy might almost call you a charmer.  Presumably this gift of yours prompted the Board to make this second assignment to the monastery.  But do not use your gift too freely, Joseph, and set no immoderate value on your achievements.  If you succeed with Father Jacobus, that will be the proper moment for you to address a personal request to the Board.  Today it seems to me premature.  Let me know when you are ready to leave."

        Joseph received these words in silence, laying more weight on the benevolence behind them than the patent reprimand.  Soon thereafter he returned to Mariafels.

        There he found the security of a precisely defined task a great benefaction.  Moreover, this task was important and honourable, and in one respect it coincided with how own deepest desires: to come as close as possible to Father Jacobus and to win his full friendship.  At the monastery he was evidently taken seriously as an envoy now, and was thought to have been raised in rank.  The conduct of the dignitaries of the abbey, especially Abbot Gervasius himself, made that plain to him.  They were as friendly as ever, but a discernible degree more respectful than before.  They no longer treated Joseph as a young guest of no standing, towards whom they showed civility for the sake of his origins and out of benevolence towards him personally.  He was now received as a high-ranking Castalian official, given the deference due to an ambassador plenipotentiary.  No longer blind in these matters, Joseph drew his own conclusions.

        Nevertheless, he could discover no change in Father Jacobus's attitude towards him.  The old scholar greeted him with friendliness and pleasure.  Without waiting to be asked or reminded, he himself brought up the matter of their working together.  Joseph was deeply touched.  He rearranged his schedule; his daily routine was now very different from what it had been before his vacation.  This time the Glass Bead Game course no longer formed the centre of his work and duties.  He gave up his studies in the music archives and his friendly collaboration with the organist.  Now his chief concern was the instruction he received from Father Jacobus: lessons in several branches of historical science.  The monk introduced his special pupil to the background and early history of the Benedictine Order and to the sources for the early Middle Ages.  He set aside a special hour in which they would read together one of the old chroniclers in the original.  Father Jacobus was not displeased when Knecht pleaded to have young Anton participate in the lessons; but he had little difficulty in persuading Joseph that even the best-intentioned third party could prove a serious hindrance to this kind of intensely private instruction.  In consequence, Anton, who knew nothing of Knecht's efforts on his behalf, was invited to take part only in the readings of the chronicler, and was overjoyed.  Undoubtedly these lessons constituted a distinction for the young monk, concerning whose life we have no further information.  They must have been a supreme pleasure and stimulus, for he was being allowed to share in the work and intellectual exchange of two of the purest and most original minds of his age.  Share, however, is perhaps an exaggeration; for the most part the young recruit merely listened.

        Joseph repaid Father Jacobus by giving him an introduction to the history and structure of Castalia and the main ideas underlying the Glass Bead Game.  This instruction followed immediately after his own lessons in epigraphy and source work, the pupil becoming the teacher and the honoured teacher an attentive listener and often a captious critic and questioner.  For a long while the reverend Father continued to hold the whole Castalian mentality in distrust.  Because he saw no real religious attitude in it, he doubted its capacity to rear the kind of human being he could take seriously, despite the fact that Knecht himself represented so fine a product of Castalian education.  Even long after he had undergone a kind of conversion, insofar as that was possible, through Knecht's teaching and example, and was prepared to recommend the rapprochement of Castalia to Rome, this distrust never entirely died.  Knecht's notes are full of striking examples of it, jotted down at the moment.  We shall quote from one of them:

        Father Jacobus: "You are great scholars and aesthetes, you Castalians.  You measure the weight of the vowels in an old poem and relate the resulting formula to that of a planet's orbit.  That is delightful, but it is a game.  And indeed your supreme mystery and symbol, the Glass Bead Game, is also a game.  I grant that you try to exalt this pretty game into something akin to a sacrament, or at least to a device for edification.  But sacraments do not spring from such endeavours.  The game remains a game."

        Joseph: "You mean, reverend Father, that we lack the foundation of theology?"

        Father Jacobus: "Come now, of theology we will not speak.  You are much too far from that.  You could at least do with a few simpler foundations, with a science of man, for example, a real doctrine and real knowledge about the human race.  You do not know man, do not understand him in his bestiality and as the image of God.  All you know is the Castalian, a special product, a caste, a rare experiment in breeding."

        For Knecht, of course, it was an extraordinary piece of good fortune that these hours of instruction and discourse provided him with the widest field and the most favourable opportunities to carry out his assignment of gaining Father Jacobus's approval of Castalia and convincing him of the value of an alliance.  The situation in fact was so favourable to his purposes that he soon began to feel twinges of conscience.  He came to think it shameful and unworthy when they sat together, or strolled back and forth in the cloisters, that the reverend man should be so trustfully sacrificing his time, when he was all the while the object of secret political designs.  Knecht could not have accepted this situation in silence for long, and he was already considering just how to make his disclosure when, to his surprise, the old man anticipated him.

        "My dear friend," he said to him with seeming offhandedness one day, "we have really found our way to a most pleasant and, I would hope, also a fruitful kind of exchange.  The two activities that have been my favourites throughout my life, learning and teaching, have fused into a fine new combination during our joint working sessions, and for me that has come at just the right time, for I am beginning to age and cannot imagine any better cure and refreshment than our lessons.  As far as I am concerned, therefore, I am the one who gains from our exchange.  On the other hand, I am not so sure, my friend, that you and particularly those whose envoy you are and whom you serve will have profited from the business as much as they may hope.  I should like to avert any future disappointment and would be sorry to have any unclear relationship arise between us.  Therefore permit an old hand a question.  I have of course had occasion to think about the reason for your sojourn in our little abbey, pleasant as it is for me.  Until recently, that is up to the time of your vacation, it seemed to me that the purpose of your presence among us was not completely clear even to yourself.  Was my observation correct?"

        "It was."

        "Good.  Since your return from that vacation, this has changed.  You are no longer puzzling or anxious about the reason for your presence here.  You know why you are here.  Am I right? - Good, then I have not guessed wrong.  Presumably I am also not guessing wrong in my notion of the reason.  You have a diplomatic assignment, and it concerns neither our monastery nor our Abbot, but me.  As you see, not very much is left of your secret.  To clarify the situation completely, I shall take the final step and ask you to inform me fully about the rest of it.  What is your assignment?"

        Knecht had sprung to his feet and stood facing Father Jacobus, surprised, embarrassed, feeling something close to dismay.  "You are right," he cried, "but at the same time that you relieve me of a burden, you also shame me by speaking first.  I have long been considering how I could manage to give our relationship the clarity you have established so rapidly.  The one saving thing is that my request for instruction and our agreement fell in the period before my vacation.  Otherwise it truly would have seemed as if the whole thing had been diplomacy on my part, and our studies merely a pretext."

        The old man spoke with friendly reassurance: "I merely wanted to help both of us move forward a step.  There is no need for you to aver the purity of your motives.  If I have anticipated you and helped speed the coming of something that also seems desirable to you, all is well."

        After Knecht had told him the nature of his assignment, he commented: "Your superiors in Castalia are not exactly brilliant diplomats, but they are not so bad either, and they know a good thing when they see it.  I shall give all the consideration to your mission, and my decision will depend partly on how well you can explain your Castalian constitution and ideals, and make them seem plausible to me.  Let us give ourselves all the time we need for that."  Seeing that Knecht still looked somewhat crestfallen, he gave a brittle laugh and said: "If you like, you can also regard my proceedings thus as a kind of lesson.  We are two diplomats, and diplomats' intercourse is always a combat, no matter how friendly a form it may take.  In our struggle, as it happens, I was momentarily at a disadvantage; I had lost the initiative.  You knew more than I.  Now the balance has been restored.  The chess move was successful; therefore it was the right one."

        Knecht thought it important to win Father Jacobus's approval for the Castalian authorities' project; but it seemed to him far more important to learn as much as possible from him, and for his own part to served this learned and powerful man as a reliable guide to the Castalian world.  A good many of Knecht's friends and later disciples envied him as remarkable men are always envied, not only for their greatness of soul and energy, but also for their seeming luck, their seeming preferment by destiny.  The lesser man sees in the greater as much as he can see, and Joseph Knecht's career cannot help striking ever observer as unusually brilliant, rapid, and seemingly effortless.  Certainly we are tempted to say of that period in his life: he was lucky.  Nor would we wish to try to explain this "luck" rationalistically or moralistically, either as the casual result of external circumstances or as a kind of reward for special virtue.  Luck has nothing to do with rationality or morality; by its nature it has about it a quality akin to magic, belonging to a primitive, more youthful stage of mankind's history.  The lucky innocent, showered with gifts by the fairies, pampered by the gods, is not the object of rational study, and hence not a fit subject for biographical analysis; he is a symbol who always stands outside the personal and the historical realms.  Nevertheless, there are outstanding men with whose lives "luck" is intimately bound up, even though that luck may consist merely in the fact that they and the task proper to their talents actually intersect on the plane of history and biography, that they are born neither too soon nor too late.  Knecht seems to have been one of these.  Thus his life, at least for a considerable part of his way, gives the impression that everything desirable simply fell into his lap.  We do not wish to deny or to gloss over this aspect of his life.  Moreover, we could explain it rationally only by a biographical method which is not  ours, neither desired nor permitted in Castalia; that is, we would have to enter into an almost unlimited discussion of the most personal, most private matters, of health and sickness, the oscillations and curves in his vitality and self-confidence.  We are quite sure that any such biographical approach - which is out of the question for us - would reveal a perfect balance between Knecht's "luck" and his suffering, but nevertheless would falsify our portrayal of his person and his life.

        But enough digression.  We are saying that many of those who knew Knecht, or had only heard of him, envied him.  Probably few things in his life seemed to lesser folk so enviable as his relationship to the old Benedictine Father, for he was at one and the same time pupil and teacher, taker and giver, conquered and conqueror, friend and collaborator.  Moreover, none of Knecht's conquests since his successful courting of Elder Brother in the Bamboo Grove had given him such happiness.  No other had made him feel so intensely honoured and abashed, rewarded and stimulated.  Of his later favourite pupils, almost all have testified to how frequently, gladly, and joyfully he would refer to Father Jacobus.  Knecht learned from the Benedictine something he could scarcely have learned in the Castalia of those days.  He acquired an overview of the methods of historical knowledge and the tools of historical research, and had his first practice in applying them.  But far beyond that, he experienced history not as an intellectual discipline, but as reality, as life; and in keeping with that, the transformation and elevation of his own personal life into history.  This was something he could not have learned from a mere scholar.  Father Jacobus was not only far more than a scholar, a seer, and a sage; he was also a mover and shaper.  He had used the position in which fate had placed him not just to warm himself at the cosy fires of a contemplative existence; he had allowed the winds of the world to blow through his scholar's den and admitted the perils and forebodings of the age into his heart.  He had taken action, had shared the blame and the responsibility for the events of his time; he had not contented himself with surveying, arranging, and interpreting the happenings of the distant past.  And he had not dealt only with ideas, but with the refractoriness of matter and the obstinacy of men.  Together with his associate and antagonist, a recently deceased Jesuit, he was regarded as the real architect of the diplomatic and moral power and the impressive political prestige that the Roman Church had regained after ages of meekly borne ineffectuality and insignificance.

        Although teacher and pupil scarcely ever discussed current politics (the Benedictine's practice in holding his counsel as well as the younger man's reluctance to be drawn into such issues combined to prevent that), Father Jacobus's political position and activities so permeated his mind that all his opinions, all of his glances into the thicket of the world's squabbles were those of the practical statesman.  Not that he was an ambitious or an intriguing politician.  He was no regent and leader, no climber either, but a councillor and arbitrator, a man whose conduct was tempered by sagacity, whose efforts were restrained by a profound insight into the inadequacies and difficulties of human nature, but whose fame, experience, knowledge of men and conditions, as well as his personal integrity and altruism, had enabled him to gain significant power.

        Knecht had known nothing of all this when he came to Mariafels.  He had even been ignorant of Father Jacobus's name.  The majority of the inhabitants of Castalia lived in a state of political innocence and naïveté such as had been quite common among the professors of earlier ages, they had no political rights and duties, scarcely ever saw a newspaper.  Such was the habit of the average Castalian, such his attitude.  Repugnance for current events, politics, newspapers, was even greater among the Glass Bead Game players who liked to think of themselves as the real elite, the cream of the Province, and went to some lengths not to let anything cloud the rarefied atmosphere of their scholarly and artistic existences.  As we have seen, at the time of his first appearance at the monastery, Knecht had come not as a diplomatic envoy but solely as a teacher of the Glass Bead Game, and had no political knowledge aside from what Monsieur Dubois had managed to instil in a few weeks.  He was by comparison much more knowing now, but he had by no means surrendered the Waldzeller's distaste for engaging in current politics.  Although his association with Father Jacobus had awakened him politically and taught him a good deal, this had not happened because Knecht was drawn to this realm.  It just happened, as an inevitable though incidental consequence.

        In order to add to his equipment and the better to fulfil his honourable task of lecturing de rebus castaliensibus to his pupil, Father Jacobus, Knecht had brought with him from Waldzell literature on the constitution and history of the Province, on the system of the elite schools, and on the evolution of the Glass Bead Game.  Some of these books had served him twenty years before during his struggle with Plinio Designori - and he had not looked at them since.  Others, meant specially for the officials of Castalia, had been barred to him as a student.  Now he read them for the first time.  The result was that at the very time his areas of study were so notably expanding, he was also forced once again to contemplate, understand, and reinforce his own intellectual and historical base.  In his efforts to present the nature of the Order and of the Castalian system to Father Jacobus with maximum simplicity and clarity, he inevitably stumbled over the weakest point in his own and all Castalian education.  He found that he himself had only a pale and rigidly schematic notion of the historical conditions which had led to the foundation of the Order and everything that followed from it.  His picture of the conditions which had furthered the growth of the new system lacked all vividness and orderliness.  Since Father Jacobus was anything but a passive pupil, the result was an intensified collaboration, an extremely animated exchange of views.  While Joseph tried to present the history of his Castalian Order, Jacobus helped him to see many aspects of this history in the proper light for the first time, and to discern its roots in the general history of nations.  Because of the Benedictine's temperament, these discussions often turned into passionate disputes, and as we shall see they continued to bear fruit years later and remained a vital influence down to the end of Knecht's life.  On the other hand, the close attention Father Jacobus had given Knecht's exposition, and the thoroughness with which he came to know and appreciate Castalia, was evidenced by his subsequent conduct.  Due to the work of these two men, there arose between Rome and Castalia a benevolent neutrality and occasional scholarly exchange which now and then developed into actual cooperation and alliance and ultimately produced the concord which continues to this day.  In time Father Jacobus asked to be introduced to the theory of the Glass Bead Game - which he had originally pooh-poohed - for he sensed that here lay the secret of the Order and what might be called its faith or religion.  Once he had consented to penetrate into this world he had hitherto known only from hearsay, and for which he had felt little liking, he resolutely proceeded in his shrewd and energetic way straight towards its centre.  And although he did not become a Glass Bead Game player - he was in any case far too old for that - the devotees of the Game and the Order outside the borders of Castalia had hardly a friend as earnest and influential as the great Benedictine.

        Now and then, after a session of joint work, Father Jacobus would indicate that he would be at home to Joseph that evening.  After the strenuous lessons and the tense discussions, those were peaceful hours.  Joseph frequently brought his clavichord along, or a violin, and the old man would sit down at the piano in the gentle light of a candle whose sweet fragrance of wax filled the small room like the music of Corelli, Scarlatti, Telemann, or Bach, which they played alternately or together.  The old man's bedtime came early, while Knecht, refreshed by these brief musical vespers, would continue his studies into the night, to the limits his self-discipline permitted.

        Aside from his lessons with Father Jacobus, his perfunctory course in the Game, and an occasional Chinese colloquium with Abbot Gervasius, we also find Knecht engaged at this time in an elaborate task.  He was taking part in the annual competition of the Waldzell elite, from which he had abstained in the past two years.  The competition involved working out sketches for Games based on three or four prescribed main themes.  Stress was placed on new, bold, and original associations of themes, impeccable logic, and beautiful calligraphy.  Moreover, this was the sole occasion when competitors were permitted to overstep the bounds of the canon.  That is, they could employ new symbols not yet admitted to the official code and vocabulary of hieroglyphs.  This made the competition - which in any case was the most exciting annual event in Waldzell except for the great public ceremonial games - a contest among the most promising advocates of new Game symbols, and the very highest distinction for a winner in this competition consisted in the recognition of his proposed additions to the grammar and vocabulary of the Game and their acceptance into the Game Archives and the Game language.  This was a very rare distinction indeed; usually the winner had to be content only with the ceremonial performance of his Game as the best candidate's Game of the year.  Once, some twenty-five years ago, the great Thomas von der Trave, the present Magister Ludi, had been awarded this honour with his new abbreviations for the alchemical significance of the signs of the zodiac - later, too, Magister Thomas made large contributions to the study and classification of alchemy as a highly meaningful secret language.

        For his entry Knecht chose not to draw on any new Game symbols such as virtually every candidate had in readiness.  He also refrained from using his Game as an avowal of attachment to the psychological method of Game construction, although that would have been closer to his inclinations.  Instead, he built up a Game modern and personal enough in its structure and themes, but of transparently clear, classical composition and strictly symmetrical development in the vein of the old masters.  Perhaps distance from Waldzell and the Game Archives forced him to take this line; perhaps his historical studies made too great demands on his time and strength; but it may also be that he was more or less consciously guided by the desire to shape his Game so that it would correspond as closely as possible to the taste of his teacher and friend, Father Jacobus.  We do not know.

        We have used the phrase "psychological method of Game construction", and perhaps some of our readers will not immediately understand it.  In Knecht's day it was a slogan bandied about a good deal.  No doubt all periods have seen currents, vogues, struggles, and differing views and approaches among the initiates of the Glass Bead Game.  At that time two opposing concepts of the Game called forth controversy and discussion.  The foremost players distinguished two principal types of Game, the formal and the psychological.  We know that Knecht, like Tegularius - although the latter kept out of the arguments - belonged to the champions of the latter type.  Knecht, however, instead of speaking of the "psychological" mode of play usually preferred the word "pedagogical".

        In the formal Game the player sought to compose out of the objective content of every game, out of the mathematical, linguistic, musical, and other elements, as dense, coherent, and formally perfect a unity and harmony as possible.  In the psychological Game, on the other hand, the object was to create unity and harmony, cosmic roundness and perfection, not so much in the choice, arrangement, interweaving, association, and contrast of the contents as in the meditation which followed every stage of the Game.  All the stress was placed on this meditation.  Such a psychological - or to use Knecht's word, pedagogical - Game did not display perfection to the outward eye.  Rather, it guided the player, by means of its succession of precisely prescribed meditations, towards experiencing perfection and divinity.  "The Game as I conceive it," Knecht once wrote to the former Music Master, "encompasses the player after the completion of meditation as the surface of a sphere encompasses its centre, and leaves him with the feeling that he has extracted from the universe of accident and confusion a totally symmetrical and harmonious cosmos, and absorbed it into himself."

        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 his 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 towards 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 offence.  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 send 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 acknowledgement 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 favourable enough to things of the spirit, in no way like a gaol, 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 no 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 festive 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 honourable 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 fulfilments 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.