The Glass Bead Game

by Hermann Hesse

  "You have come just in time," the old man said. "Soon I would no longer be empowered to receive you into the Order as a younger brother. I am about to resign my office; my release has already been granted."

  The ceremony itself was simple. On the following day the Music Master invited two brothers of the Order to be present as witnesses, as prescribed by the statutes. Previously, he had given Knecht a paragraph from the rules as the subject of a meditation exercise. It was the familiar passage: "If the high Authority appoints you to an office, know this: every step upward on the ladder of offices is not a step into freedom but into bondage. The higher the office, the tighter the bondage. The greater the power of the office, the stricter the service. The stronger the personality, the less self-will."

  The group then assembled in the Magister's music cell, the same in which Knecht had long ago been introduced to the art of meditation. The Master called upon the novice, in honor of the initiation, to play a chorale prelude by Bach. Then one of the witnesses read aloud the abbreviated version of the rules of the Order, and the Music Master himself asked the ritual questions and received his young friend's oath. He accorded Joseph another hour; they sat in the garden and the Master advised him on how to identify himself with the rules and live by them. "It is good," he said, "that at the moment I am departing you are stepping into the breach; it is as if I had a son who will stand in my stead." And when he saw Joseph's sad look he added: "Come now, don't be downcast. I'm not. I am very tired and looking forward to the leisure I mean to enjoy, and which you will share with me frequently, I hope. And next time we meet, use the familiar pronoun of address to me. I could not offer that as long as I held office." He dismissed him with that winning smile which Joseph had now known for twenty years.

  Knecht returned quickly to Waldzell, for he had been given only three days leave. He was barely back when the Magister Ludi sent for him, greeted him affably as one colleague to another, and congratulated him on his admission to the Order. "All that is now lacking to make us completely colleagues and associates," he continued, "is your assignment to a definite place in our organization."

  Joseph was somewhat taken aback. So this would be the end of his freedom.

  "Oh," he said timidly, "I hope I can prove useful in some modest spot somewhere. But to be candid with you, I had been hoping I would be able to continue studying freely for a while longer."

  The Magister looked straight into his eyes with a faintly ironic smile. "You say 'a while,' but how long is that?"

  Knecht gave an embarrassed laugh. "I really don't know."

  "So I thought," the Master said. "You are still speaking the language of students and thinking in student terms, Joseph Knecht. That is quite all right now, but soon it will no longer be all right, for we need you. Besides, you know that later on, even in the highest offices of our Order, you can obtain leaves for purposes of study, if you can persuade the authorities of the value of these studies. My predecessor and teacher, for example, while he was still Magister Ludi and an old man, requested and received a full year's furlough for studies in the London Archives. But he received his furlough not for 'a while,' but for a specific number of months, weeks, and days. Henceforth you will have to count on that. And now I have a proposal to make to you. We need a reliable man who is as yet unknown outside our circle for a special mission."

  The assignment was the following. The Benedictine monastery of Mariafels, one of the oldest centers of learning in the country, which maintained friendly relations with Castalia and in particular had favored the Glass Bead Game for decades, had asked him to send a young teacher for a prolonged stay, to give introductory courses in the Game and also to stimulate the few advanced players in the monastery. The Magister's choice had fallen upon Joseph Knecht. That was why he had been so discreetly tested; that was why his entry into the Order had been accelerated.

  FOUR

  Two Orders

  In a good many respects Joseph Knecht's situation was once again similar to that in his Latin school days after the Music Master's visit. Joseph himself would scarcely have imagined that the appointment to Mariafels represented a special distinction and a large first step on the ladder of the hierarchy, but he was after all a good deal wiser about such matters nowadays and could plainly read the significance of his summons in the attitude and conduct of his fellow students. Of course he had belonged for some time to the innermost circle within the elite of the Glass Bead Game players, but now the unusual assignment marked him to all and sundry as a young man whom the superiors had their eye on and whom they intended to employ. His associates and ambitious fellow players did not exactly withdraw or become unfriendly--the members of this highly aristocratic group were far too well-mannered for that--but an aloofness nevertheless arose. Yesterday's friend might well be tomorrow's superior, and this circle registered and expressed such gradations and differentiations by the most delicate shades of behavior.

  One exception was Fritz Tegularius, whom we may well call, next to Ferromonte, Joseph Knecht's closest friend throughout his life. Tegularius, destined by his gifts for the highest achievements but severely hampered by certain deficiencies of health, balance, and self-confidence, was the same age as Knecht at the time of Knecht's admission to the Order--that is, about thirty-four--and had first met him some ten years earlier in a Glass Bead Game course. At the time Knecht had sensed how strong an attraction he exerted upon this quiet and rather melancholy youth. With that psychological instinct which he possessed even then, although without precisely knowing it, he likewise grasped the essence of this love on the part of Tegularius. It was friendship ready for unconditional devotion, a respect capable of the utmost subordination. It was imbued with an almost religious fervor, but overshadowed and held in bounds by an aristocratic reserve and a foreboding of inner tragedy. In the beginning, still shaken and oversensitive, not to say suspicious, as a result of the Designori episode, Knecht had held Tegularius at a distance by consistent sternness, although he too felt drawn to this interesting and unusual schoolfellow. For a characterization of Tegularius we may use a page from Knecht's confidential memoranda which, years later, he regularly drew up for the exclusive use of the highest authorities. It reads:

  "Tegularius. Personal friend of the writer. Recipient of several honors at school in Keuperheim. Good classical philologist, strong interest in philosophy, worked on Leibniz, Bolzano, subsequently Plato. The most brilliant and gifted Glass Bead Game player I know. He would be predestined for Magister Ludi were it not that his character, together with his frail health, make him completely unsuited for that position. T. should never be appointed to an outstanding, representative, or organizational position; that would be a misfortune for him and for the office. His deficiency takes physical form in states of low vitality, periods of insomnia and nervous aches, psychologically in spells of melancholy, a hunger for solitude, fear of duties and responsibilities, and probably also in thoughts of suicide. Dangerous though his situation is, by the aid of meditation and great self-discipline he keeps himself going so courageously that most of his acquaintances have no idea of how severely he suffers and are aware only of his great shyness and taciturnity. But although T. unfortunately is not fitted for higher posts, he is nevertheless a jewel in the Vicus Lusorum, an altogether irreplaceable treasure. He has mastered the technique of our game like a great musician his instrument; he instinctively finds the most delicate nuances, and is also an exceptional instructor. In the advanced and highest review courses--for my part he would be wasted in the lower ones--I could scarcely manage without him any longer. The way he analyzes the specimen Games of boys without ever discouraging them, the way he detects their tricks, infallibly recognizes and exposes everything imitative or purely decorative, the way he finds the sources of error in a Game that has started well but then gone astray, and lays these errors bare like flawlessly prepared anatomical specimens--is altogether unique. It is this sharp and incorruptible talent for analysis and correction that assures h
im the respect of students and colleagues, which otherwise might have been jeopardized by his unstable demeanor and shyness.

  "I should like to cite an example to illustrate T.'s brilliance as a Glass Bead Game player. During the early days of my friendship with him, when both of us were already finding little more to learn by way of technique in our courses, he once--it was a moment of unusual trust--allowed me to look at several games he had composed. I saw at a glance that they were brilliantly devised and somehow novel and original in style, asked to borrow the sketches for study, and discovered that these Game compositions were true literary productions, so amazing and singular that I feel I should speak of them here. These Games were little dramas, in structure almost pure monologues, reflecting the imperiled but brilliant life of the author's mind like a perfect self-portrait. The various themes and groups of themes on which the Games were based, and their sequences and confrontations, were brilliantly conceived, dialectically orchestrated and counterpoised. But beyond that, the synthesis and harmonization of the opposing voices was not carried to the ultimate conclusion in the usual classical manner; rather, this harmonization underwent a whole series of refractions, of splintering into overtones, and paused each time, as if wearied and despairing, just on the point of dissolution, finally fading out in questioning and doubt. As a result, those Games possessed a stirring chromatics, of a kind never before ventured, as far as I know. Moreover, the Games as a whole expressed a tragic doubt and renunciation; they became figurative statements of the dubiousness of all intellectual endeavor. At the same time, in their intellectual structure as well as in their calligraphic technique and perfection, they were so extraordinarily beautiful that they brought tears to one's eyes. Each of these Games moved with such gravity and sincerity toward solution, only at the last so nobly to forgo the attempt at solution, that it was like a perfect elegy upon the transitoriness inherent in all beautiful things and the ultimate dubiety immanent in all soaring flights of the intellect.

  "Item: I would recommend Tegularius, if he should outlive me or my term in office, as an extremely fine, precious, but imperiled treasure. He should be granted maximum freedom; he should be consulted on all important questions concerning the Game. But students should never be placed in his sole guidance."

  In the course of the years this remarkable man had become Knecht's true friend. He admired Knecht's capacity for leadership as well as his mind, and showed a touching devotion toward him. In fact, much of what we know about Knecht has been handed down by Tegularius. In the innermost circle of younger Glass Bead Game players he was perhaps the only one who did not envy his friend for the important assignment he had received, and the only one for whom Knecht's absence for an indefinite time meant an almost unbearable anguish and sense of loss.

  Joseph himself rejoiced in the new state of affairs as soon as he recovered from the shock of suddenly being shorn of his beloved freedom. He felt eagerness to travel, pleasure in activity, and curiosity about the alien world to which he was being sent. Incidentally, he was not allowed to depart for Mariafels without preparation; first he was assigned to the "Police" for three weeks. That was the students' name for the small department within the Board of Educators which might be called its Political Department or even its Foreign Ministry, were these not somewhat grandiose names for so small an affair. There he received instruction in the rules of conduct for brothers of the Order during their stays in the outside world. Dubois, the head of this office, personally devoted an hour to him nearly every day. This conscientious man seemed worried that an altogether untried young man without the faintest knowledge of the world should be sent to such a foreign post. He made no attempt to conceal his disapproval of the Magister Ludi's decision, and took extra pains to inform this new member of the Order on the facts of life in the outside world and the means for effectively combatting its perils. His sincere paternal solicitude fortunately was matched by Joseph's willingness to be instructed. The result was that during those hours of introduction into the rules of intercourse with the world, the teacher conceived a real affection for Joseph Knecht, and finally felt able to dismiss him reassured and fully confident that the young man would be able to carry out his mission successfully. Dubois even tried, more out of personal good will than the demands of politics, to give Joseph a kind of additional assignment on his own behalf. As one of Castalia's few "politicians," Dubois was one of that tiny group of officials whose thoughts and studies were largely devoted to sustaining the legal and economic continuance of Castalia, to regulating its relationship to the outside world and the problems that arose from its dependence on the world. The great majority of Castalians, the officials no less than the scholars and students, lived in their Pedagogic Province and their Order as if these constituted a stable, eternal, inevitable world. They knew, of course, that it had not always existed, that it had come into being slowly and amid bitter struggles in times of cruel distress; they knew it had originated at the end of the Age of Wars out of a double source: the heroically ascetic efforts of scholars, artists, and thinkers who had come to their senses, and the profound craving of the exhausted, bled, and betrayed peoples for order, normality, reason, lawfulness, and moderation. Castalians knew this, and understood the function of all the Orders and Pedagogic Provinces throughout the world: to abstain from government and competition and instead to assure stability for the spiritual foundations of moderation and law everywhere. But that the present order of things was not to be taken for granted, that it presupposed a certain harmony between the world and the guardians of culture, that this harmony could always be disrupted, and that world history taken as a whole by no means furthered what was desirable, rational, and beautiful in the life of man, but at best only occasionally tolerated it as an exception--all this they did not realize. Except for those few political thinkers like Dubois, almost all Castalians were unaware of the secret complex of problems underlying the existence of Castalia. Once Knecht won the confidence of Dubois, he was given a glimpse of the political foundations of Castalia. At first the subject struck him as rather repellent and uninteresting--which, indeed, was the reaction of most members of the Order. But then he recalled Plinio Designori's remark about possible dangers to Castalia. Along with that recollection there flooded back into his mind the whole bitter aftertaste of his youthful debates with Plinio, seemingly long since settled and forgotten. Now these suddenly seemed to him of the highest importance and, moreover, a stage on the road to his "awakening."

  At the end of their last talk Dubois said to him: "I think I can let you go now. You are to adhere strictly to the assignment his honor the Magister Ludi has given you, and no less strictly to the rules of conduct we have taught you here. It was a pleasure to me to be able to help you. You will see that the three weeks we have kept you were not time lost. And if you should ever want to recompense me for my contribution to your education, I can suggest a way. You will be entering a Benedictine abbey, and if you stay there a while and commend yourself to the Fathers, you will probably hear political conversations and sense political currents among the venerable Fathers and their guests. If you would occasionally inform me about such matters, I would be grateful. Please understand me aright: you are certainly not to regard yourself as a kind of spy or in any way misuse confidences. You are not to pass along anything that goes against your conscience. I guarantee that we will use any information we may receive only in the interest of our Order and Castalia. We are not real politicians and have no power at all, but we too are dependent on the world, which either needs or tolerates us. Circumstances may arise in which we might profit by knowing that a statesman is making a retreat in a monastery, or that the Pope is said to be ill, or that new candidates have been added to the list of future cardinals. We are not dependent on your information--we have quite a variety of sources--but one little source more can do no harm. Go now, you need not say yes or no to this matter. For the present all that is needed is for you to comport yourself well in your official assignment
and do us honor among the spiritual Fathers. Bon voyage."

  In the Book of Changes, which Knecht consulted by means of the yarrow stalk ritual before he set out, he counted out the hexagram Lu, which signifies "The Wanderer," and the augury: "Success through smallness. Persistence is good fortune to the wanderer." He found a six for the second place, which yielded the interpretation:

  The wanderer comes to the inn.

  He has his possessions with him.

  He receives the persistent attentions of a young servant.

  Knecht's leave-taking went off cheerfully, except that his last talk with Tegularius proved to be a hard test of both their characters. Fritz controlled himself by extreme effort and appeared absolutely frozen in the coolness he forced himself to display. For him, the best he had was departing with his friend. Knecht's nature did not permit so passionate and above all so exclusive an attachment to a friend. If need be, he could get along without one and could direct his affections easily toward new objects and people. This parting was not a painful loss for him; but he knew his friend well enough to know what a shock and trial it meant for him, and he was concerned. He had given much thought to the nature of this friendship, and had once spoken about it with the Music Master. To a certain extent he had learned to objectify his own experience and feelings, and to regard them critically. In so doing he had become aware that it was not really, or at any rate not only, his friend's great talent that attracted him to Tegularius. Rather, it was the association of this talent with such serious defects, such great fragility. And he realized that the single-mindedness of the love Tegularius offered him had not only its beautiful aspect, but also a dangerous attraction, for it tempted him to display his power over one weaker in strength though not in love. Therefore in this relationship he had made restraint and self-discipline his duty to the last. Fond though he was of Tegularius, the friendship would not have acquired so deep a meaning for him if it had not taught him something about the dominion he had over others weaker and less secure than himself. He learned that this power to influence others was part and parcel of the educator's gift, and that it concealed dangers and imposed responsibility. Tegularius, after all, was only one of many. In the eyes of quite a few others Knecht read silent courtship.