The Glass Bead Game (50 page)

Which brings me to my personal petition to the esteemed Board. I herewith request the Board to relieve me of my office as Magister Ludi and entrust to me an ordinary school, large or small, outside in the country; to let me staff it with a group of youthful members of our Order. I would recruit as teachers those whom I could confidently expect to help instil our principles into young people out in the world.

I hope that the esteemed Board will deign to examine my petition and its reasoning with due benevolence and let me know its decisions.

T
HE
M
ASTER OF THE
G
LASS
B
EAD
G
AME
.

Postscript:

Permit me to cite a remark of the Reverend Father Jacobus, which I noted down in the course of one of his private lessons:

“Times of terror and deepest misery may be in the offing. But if any happiness at all is to be extracted from that misery, it can be only a spiritual happiness, looking backward toward the conservation of the culture of earlier times, looking forward toward serene and stalwart defense of the things of the spirit in an age which otherwise might succumb wholly to material things.”

Tegularius did not know how little of his work was present in this memorandum; he was not shown the final version, although Knecht did let him read two earlier, much more detailed drafts. The Magister Ludi dispatched the memorandum and awaited the Board's answer with far less impatience than his friend. He had come to the decision not to involve Fritz in his further actions. He therefore forbade him to discuss the matter any more, merely indicating that it would surely be a long time before the Board reacted to the memorandum.

When in fact the reply arrived sooner than he had expected, Tegularius heard nothing about it. The letter from Hirsland read:

To His Excellency the Magister Ludi in Waldzell.

Esteemed Colleague:

The Directorate of the Order and the Assembly of Masters have taken note of your warmhearted and perspicacious circular letter with more than ordinary interest. We have found your historical observations no less absorbing than your ominous picture of the future, and some of us will undoubtedly long continue to ponder and to draw profit from your reflections, which surely are not groundless. We have all recognized, with gladness and deep appreciation, the principles that inspire you, the truly Castalian principles of altruism. We see that you are motivated by a profound and by now almost instinctive love for our Province, for its life and its customs, a concerned and at the moment somewhat overanxious love. With equal gladness and appreciation we observe the personal overtones of that love, its spirit of sacrifice, its active impulse, its earnestness and zeal, and its heroic element. In all this we recognize the character of our Glass Bead Game Master as we know it; we see his energy, his ardor, his daring. How characteristic of the famous Benedictine's disciple that he does not study history as a mere scholarly end in itself, an aesthetic game to be regarded without emotion, but rather applies his historical knowledge directly to current needs; that his perceptions impel him to take certain measures. And, revered colleague, how perfectly it corresponds with your character that you should feel drawn not to political missions, not to posts of influence and honor, but to the role of simple Ludi Magister, that of a schoolmaster.

Such are some of the impressions, some of the thoughts that were awakened by the very first reading of your circular letter. Most of your colleagues responded in much the same way. The Board has not, however, been able to take a stand on your warnings and requests. We have met and held a lively discussion of your view that our very existence is threatened. Much was said about the nature, extent, and possible imminence of the dangers. The majority of our members obviously took these questions most seriously indeed, and grew quite heated in discussing them. But we are compelled to inform you that on none of these questions did a majority favor your view. The imaginative power and farsightedness of your historico-political observations was acknowledged; but none of your specific conjectures, or shall we say prophecies, was fully approved. None was accepted as wholly convincing. Only a few of us agreed with you (and then with reservations) even on the question of the degree to which the Order and our Castalian system has shared the responsibility for the unusually long era of peace, or whether the Order can even be held a factor in political history. In the view of the majority, the calm that has descended upon our Continent must be ascribed partly to the general prostration following the bloodlettings of the terrible wars, but far more to the fact that the Occident has ceased to be the focal point of world history and the arena in which claims to hegemony are fought out. Certainly we would not wish to cast doubt upon the true achievements of our Order. Nevertheless, we cannot grant that the Castalian ideal, the ideal of high culture under the aegis of disciplined meditation, has any powers to shape history, any vital influence upon world political conditions. Urges or ambitions of this sort are totally alien to the Castalian mentality. Several serious disquisitions on the subject have stressed the point that Castalia seeks neither political sway nor influence on peace or war. Indeed, there could be no question of Castalia's having any such purpose, so the argument has gone, because everything Castalian is related to reason and operates within the framework of rationality—which certainly could not be said of world history, or said only by someone willing to revert to the theological and poetic sentimentalities of romantic historical philosophy. From that vantage point, of course, the whole murderous, destructive course of political history could be explained as merely the method of cosmic Reason. Moreover, even the most casual survey of the history of thought shows that the great ages of culture have never been adequately explained by political conditions. Rather, culture, or mind, or soul, has its own independent history—a second, secret, bloodless, and sanctified history—running parallel to what is generally called world history, by which we mean incessant struggles for material power. Our Order deals only with this sanctified and secret history, not with “real,” brutal world history. It can never be our task to be continually taking soundings in political history, let alone to help to shape it.

It therefore does not matter whether or not the political constellation is really as your circular letter suggests. In any case, our Order has no right to do anything about it. Our only position must be one of patient waiting to see what comes. And therefore your argument that this constellation requires us to take an active position was decisively rejected by the majority, with only a few votes in its favor.

Your views of the present world situation and your suggestions regarding the immediate future obviously impressed most of our colleagues. In fact, some of them were thunderstruck. But here too, although most of the speakers manifested respect for your knowledge and acuity, there was no evidence that the majority agreed with you. On the contrary, the consensus was that your comments on this matter were remarkable and extremely interesting, but excessively pessimistic. One colleague raised his voice to ask whether it might not be described as dangerous, if not outrageous—but surely frivolous—for a Magister to alarm his Board by such sinister images of allegedly imminent perils and tribulations. Certainly an occasional reminder of the perishability of all things was permissible; every man, and especially everyone holding a high position of responsibility, must occasionally cry out to himself the
memento mori.
But to announce in such sweeping terms the impending doom of the entire body of Masters, the entire Order, and the entire hierarchy was a tasteless assault upon the tranquility and the imagination of his colleagues, and threatened the efficiency of the Board itself. The work of a Magister surely could not profit by his going to his office every day with the thought that his position itself, his labors, his pupils, his responsibility to the Order, his life for and in Castalia—that all this might be wiped out by tomorrow or the day after.… Although the majority did not support the colleague who raised this objection, he received considerable applause.

We shall keep our present communication brief, but are at your disposal for a discussion in person. From our brief summary you can already see that your circular letter has not had the effect you may have hoped for. In large part its failure no doubt is based on objective grounds, the incompatibility of your opinions with those of the majority. But there are also purely formal reasons. At any rate it seems to us that a direct personal discussion between yourself and your colleagues would have taken a significantly more harmonious and positive course. We would moreover suggest that it was not only your couching of the matter in the form of a written memorandum that affected the Board adversely. Far more striking was your combining, in a way highly unusual among us, a professional communication with a personal request, a petition. Most of your colleagues consider this fusion an unfortunate attempt at innovation; some bluntly called it impermissible.

This brings us to the most delicate point of all, your request for release from your office and transfer to some secular school system. The petitioner should have realized from the outset that the Board could not possibly approve so sudden and curiously argued a request. Of course the Board's reply is, “No.”

What would become of our hierarchy if the Order no longer assigned each man to his place? What would become of Castalia if everyone wished to assess his own gifts and aptitudes and choose his position for himself? We suggest that the Master of the Glass Bead Game reflect upon this subject for a few minutes, and bid him to continue administering the honorable office he has been entrusted with.

In saying this we have met your request for a reply to your letter. We have been unable to give the answer you may have hoped for. But we should also like to express our appreciation for the stimulating and admonitory value of your document. We trust we will be able to discuss its content with you orally, and in the near future. For although the directorate of the Order believes that it can rely on you, that point in your memorandum in which you speak of an incapacity to conduct the affairs of your office naturally gives us grounds for concern.

Knecht read the letter without any great expectations, but with the closest attention. He had expected that the Board would have “grounds for concern,” and moreover had had signs that it was truly worried. A guest from Hirsland had recently come to the Players' Village, provided with a regular pass and a recommendation from the directorate of the Order. He had requested hospitality for a few days, supposedly for work in the Archives and library, and had also asked permission to audit a few of Knecht's lectures. An elderly man, silent and attentive, he had turned up in almost all the departments and buildings of the Village, had inquired after Tegularius, and had several times called on the director of the Waldzell elite school, who lived in the vicinity. There could scarcely be any doubt that the man had been sent as an observer to determine whether there were any traces of negligence in the Players' Village, whether the Magister was in good health and at his post, the officials diligent, the students stimulated. He had stayed for a full week and missed none of Knecht's lectures. Two of the officials had even commented on his quiet ubiquitousness. Evidently the directorate of the Order had waited for the report from this investigation before dispatching its reply to the Magister.

What was he to think of this answer, and who had probably been its author? The style betrayed nothing; it was the conventional, impersonal officialese the occasion demanded. But on subtler analysis the letter revealed more individuality than he had thought at first reading. The basis of the entire document was the hierarchic spirit, a sense of justice and love of order. It was plain to see how unwelcome, inconvenient, not to say troublesome and annoying Knecht's petition had been. Its rejection had undoubtedly been decided at once by the author of this reply, without regard to the opinions of others. On the other hand, the vexation was leavened by another emotion, for there was a clear note of sympathy present in the letter, with its mention of all the more lenient and friendly comments Knecht's petition had received during the meeting of the Board. Knecht had no doubt that Alexander, the President of the Order, was the author of this reply.

*   *   *

We have now reached the end of our journey, and hope that we have reported all the essentials of Joseph Knecht's life. A later biographer will no doubt be in a position to ascertain and impart a good many additional details about that life.

We forbear to present our own account of the Magister's last days, for we know no more about them than every Waldzell student and could not tell the story any better than the
Legend of the Magister Ludi,
many copies of which are in circulation. Presumably it was written by some of the departed Magister's favorite students. With this legend we wish to conclude our book.

TWELVE

The Legend

When we listen to our fellow students talk about our Master's disappearance, about the reasons for it, the rightness or wrongness of his decisions and acts, the meaning or meaninglessness of his fate, it sounds to us like Diodorus Siculus explaining the supposed causes for the flooding of the Nile. We would think it not only useless but wrong to add to such speculations. Instead, we wish to preserve in our hearts the memory of our Master, who so soon after his mysterious departure into the world passed over into a still more mysterious beyond. His memory is dear to us, and for this reason we wish to set down what we have learned about these events.

After the Master had read the letter in which the Board denied his petition, he felt a faint shiver, a matutinal coolness and sobriety which told him that the hour had come, that from now on there could be no more hesitating or lingering. This peculiar feeling, which he was wont to call “awakening,” was familiar to him from other decisive moments of his life. It was both vitalizing and painful, mingling a sense of farewell and of setting out on new adventures, shaking him deep down in his unconscious mind like a spring storm. He looked at the clock. In an hour he had to face a class. He decided to devote the next hour to meditation, and went into the quiet Magister's garden. On his way a line of verse suddenly sprang into his mind: