The Glass Bead Game

by Hermann Hesse

  At the same time, during the past year he had become far more conscious of the highly charged atmosphere in which he lived in the Glass Bead Game village. For there he was part of an officially nonexistent but very sharply defined circle, or class, the finest elite among the candidates and tutors of the Glass Bead Game. Now and then one or another of that group would be called upon to serve in an auxiliary capacity under the Magister or Archivist, or to help teach one of the Game courses; but they were never assigned to the lower or middle level of officialdom or the teaching corps. They provided the reserve for filling vacancies in leading posts. They knew one another thoroughly; they had almost no illusions about talents, characters, and achievements. And precisely because among these initiates and aspirants for the highest dignities each one was preeminent, each of the very first rank in performance, knowledge, and academic record--precisely for that reason those traits and nuances of character which predestined a candidate for leadership and success inevitably counted for a great deal and were closely observed. A dash more or less of graciousness, of suasion with younger men or with the authorities, of amiability, was of great importance in this group and could give its possessor a definitive edge over his rivals. Fritz Tegularius plainly belonged to this circle merely as an outsider; he was tolerated as a guest but kept at the periphery because he had no gift for rule. Just as plainly Knecht belonged to the innermost circle. What appealed to the young and made them his admirers was his wholesome vigor and still youthful charm which appeared to be resistant to passions, incorruptible and then again boyishly irresponsible--a kind of innocence, that is. And what commended him to his superiors was the reverse side of this innocence: his freedom from ambition and craving for success.

  Of late, the effects of his personality had begun to dawn upon the young man. He became aware of his attraction for those below him, and gradually, belatedly, of how he affected those above him. And when he looked back from his new standpoint of awareness to his boyhood, he found both lines running through his life and shaping it. Classmates and younger boys had always courted him; superiors had taken benevolent note of him. There had been exceptions, such as Headmaster Zbinden; but on the other hand he had been recipient of such distinctions as the patronage of the Music Master, and latterly of Dubois and the Magister Ludi. It was all perfectly plain, in spite of which Knecht had never been willing to see it and accept it in its entirety. Obviously his fate was to enter the elite everywhere, to find admiring friends and highly placed patrons. It happened of its own accord, without his trying. Obviously he would not be allowed to settle down in the shadows at the base of the hierarchy; he must move steadily toward its apex, approach the bright light at the top. He would not be a subordinate or an independent scholar; he would be a master. That he grasped this later than others in a similar position gave him that indescribable extra magic, that note of innocence.

  But why was it that he realized it so late, and so reluctantly? Because he had not sought it at all, and did not want it. He had no need to dominate, took no pleasure in commanding; he desired the contemplative far more than the active life, and would have been content to spend many years more, if not his whole life, as an obscure student, an inquiring and reverent pilgrim through the sanctuaries of the past, the cathedrals of music, the gardens and forests of mythology, languages and ideas. Now that he saw himself being pushed inexorably into the vita activa he was more than ever aware of the tensions of the aspirations, the rivalries, the ambitions among those around him. He felt his innocence threatened and no longer tenable. Now, he realized, he must desire and affirm the position that was being thrust upon him; otherwise he would be haunted by a feeling of imprisonment and nostalgia for the freedom of the past ten years. And since he was not as yet altogether ready for that affirmation, he felt his temporary departure from Waldzell and the Province, his journey out into the world, as a great relief and release.

  *

  The monastery of Mariafels, through the many centuries of its existence, had shared in the making and the suffering of the history of the West. It had experienced periods of flowering and decline, had passed through rebirths and new nadirs, and had been at various times and in assorted fields famous and brilliant. Once a center of Scholastic learning and the art of disputation, still possessing an enormous library of medieval theology, it had risen to new glory after periods of slackness and sluggishness. It then became famous for its music, its much-praised choir, and the Masses and oratorios composed and performed by the Fathers. From those days it still retained a fine musical tradition, half a dozen nut-brown chests full of music manuscripts, and the finest organ in the country. Then the monastery had entered a political era, which had likewise left behind a tradition and a certain skill. In times of war and barbarization Mariafels had several times become a little island of rationality where the better minds among the opposed parties cautiously sought each other out and groped their way toward reconciliation. And once--that was the last high point in its history--Mariafels had been the birthplace of a peace treaty which for a while met the longings of the exhausted nations. Afterward, when a new age began and Castalia was founded, the monastery took an attitude of wait-and-see, was in fact rather hostile, presumably on instructions from Rome. A request from the Board of Educators to grant hospitality to a scholar who wished to work for a time in the monastery's Scholastic library was politely turned down, as was an invitation to send a representative to a conference of musicologists. Intercourse between Castalia and the monastery had first begun in the time of Abbot Pius, who in his latter years became keenly interested in the Glass Bead Game. Ever since then a friendly though not very lively relationship had developed. Books were exchanged, reciprocal hospitality granted. Knecht's patron, the Music Master, had spent a few weeks in Mariafels during his younger years, copying music manuscripts and playing the famous organ. Knecht knew of this, and rejoiced at the prospect of staying in a place of which his venerated Master had occasionally spoken with pleasure.

  The respect and politeness with which he was received went so far beyond his expectations that he felt rather embarrassed. This was, after all, the first time that Castalia had offered the monastery a Glass Bead Game player of high distinction for an indefinite period. Joseph had learned from Dubois that he was not to regard himself as an individual, especially during the early period of his stay, but solely as the representative of Castalia, and that he was to accept and respond both to courtesies and possible aloofness solely as an ambassador. That attitude helped him through his initial constraint.

  He likewise soon overcame the feelings of strangeness, anxiety, and mild excitability which troubled his first few nights and kept him from sleeping. And since Abbot Gervasius displayed a good-natured and merry benevolence toward him, he quickly came to feel at ease in his new environment. The freshness and vigor of the landscape delighted him. The monastery was situated in rough, mountainous country, full of abrupt cliffs and pockets of rich pasture where handsome cattle grazed. He savored with deep pleasure the massiveness and size of the ancient buildings, in which the history of many centuries could be read. He enjoyed the beauty and simple comfort of his apartment, two rooms on the top floor of the guest wing. For recreation he went on exploratory walks through the fine little city-state with its two churches, cloisters, archives, library, Abbot's apartment, and courtyards, with its extensive barns filled with thrifty livestock, its gurgling fountains, gigantic vaulted wine and fruit cellars, its two refectories, the famous chapter house, the well-tended gardens and the workshops of the lay brothers: cooper, cobbler, tailor, smith, and so on, all forming a small village around the largest courtyard. He was granted entry to the library; the organist showed him the great organ and allowed him to play on it; and he was strongly attracted to the chests in which an impressive number of unpublished and to some extent quite unknown music manuscripts of earlier ages awaited study.

  The monks did not seem to be terribly impatient for him to begin his official functions. Not
only days but weeks passed before anyone seriously brought up the real purpose of his presence there. From his first day, it was true, some of the Fathers, and the Abbot himself in particular, had been eager to chat with Joseph about the Glass Bead Game. But no one said anything about instruction or any other systematic work with the Game. In other respects, too, Knecht felt that the manners, style of life, and general tone of intercourse among the monks was couched in a tempo hitherto unknown to him. There was a kind of venerable slowness, a leisurely and benign patience in which all these Fathers seemed to share, including those whose temperaments seemed rather more active. It was the spirit of their Order, the millennial pace of an age-old, privileged community whose orderly existence had survived hundreds of vicissitudes. They all shared it, as every bee shares the fate of its hive, sleeps its sleep, suffers its sufferings, trembles with its trembling. This Benedictine temper seemed at first glance less intellectual, less supple and acute, less active than the style of life in Castalia, but on the other hand calmer, less malleable, older, more resistant to tribulation. The spirit and mentality of this place had long ago achieved a harmony with nature.

  With curiosity and intense interest, and with great admiration as well, Knecht submitted to the mood of life in this monastery, which at a time before Castalia existed had been almost the same as it was now, and even then fifteen hundred years old, and which was so congenial to the contemplative side of his nature. He was an honored guest, honored far beyond his expectations and deserts; but he felt distinctly that these courtesies were a matter of form and custom and not specially addressed to him as a person, nor to the spirit of Castalia or of the Glass Bead Game. Rather, the Benedictines were displaying the majestic politeness of an ancient power to a younger one. He had been only partly prepared for this implicit superiority, and after a while, for all that his life in Mariafels was proving so agreeable, he began to feel so insecure that he asked his authorities for more precise instructions on how to conduct himself. The Magister Ludi in person wrote him a few lines: "Don't worry about taking all the time you need for your study of the life there. Profit by your days, learn, try to make yourself well liked and useful, insofar as you find your hosts receptive, but do not obtrude yourself, and never seem more impatient, never seem to be under more pressure than they. Even if they should go on treating you for an entire year as if each day were your first as a guest in their house, enter calmly into the spirit of it and behave as if two or even ten years more do not matter to you. Take it as a test in the practice of patience. Meditate carefully. If time hangs heavy on your hands, set aside a few hours every day, no more than four, for some regular work, study, or the copying of manuscripts, say. But avoid giving the impression of diligence; be at the disposal of everyone who wishes to chat with you."

  Knecht followed this advice, and soon began feeling more relaxed. Hitherto he had been thinking too much of his assignment to act as instructor to amateur Glass Bead Game players--the ostensible reason for his mission here--whereas the Fathers of the monastery were treating him rather as the envoy of a friendly power who must be kept in good humor. And when at last Abbot Gervasius recollected the assignment, and brought him together with several of the monks who had already had an introduction to the art of the Glass Bead Game and hoped he would give them a more advanced course, it turned out to his astonishment and his intense disappointment that the noble Game was cultivated in a most superficial and amateurish way at this hospitable place. He would evidently have to content himself with a very modest level of knowledge of the Game. Slowly, though, he came to realize that he had not really been sent here for the sake of lifting the standards of the Glass Bead Game in the monastery. The assignment of coaching the few Fathers moderately devoted to the Game and equipping them with a modest degree of skill was easy, much too easy. Any other adept at the Game, even if he were still far from belonging to the elite, would have been equal to the task. Instruction, then, could not be the real purpose of his mission. He began to realize that he had probably been sent here less to teach than to learn.

  However, just as he thought he had grasped this, his authority in the monastery, and consequently his self-assurance, was unexpectedly reinforced. This came in the nick of time, for in spite of all the charms of being a guest there, he had already at times begun to feel his stay as something like a punitive transfer. One day, however, in a conversation with the abbot he inadvertently made some allusion to the Chinese I Ching. The Abbot showed marked interest, asked a few questions, and could not disguise his delight when he found his guest so unexpectedly versed in Chinese and the Book of Changes. The Abbot, too, was fond of the I Ching. He knew no Chinese, and his knowledge of the book of oracles and other Chinese mysteries was limited--in all their scholarly interests the present inmates of the monastery seemed content with a harmless smattering. Nevertheless, this intelligent man, who was so much more experienced and worldly-wise than his guest, obviously had a real feeling for the spirit of ancient Chinese attitudes toward politics and life. A conversation of unusual liveliness ensued. For the first time real warmth was injected into the prevailing tone of remote courtesy between host and guest. The consequence was that Knecht was asked to give the Abbot instruction in the I Ching twice a week.

  While his relationship to his host, the Abbot, thus increased in liveliness and meaning, while his friendly fellowship with the organist throve and the small ecclesiastical state in which he lived gradually became familiar territory to him, the promise of the oracle he had consulted before leaving Castalia also neared fulfillment. As the wanderer who carried his possessions with him, he had been promised not only the shelter of an inn but also "the persistent attentions of a young servant." The wanderer felt justified in taking the consummation of this promise as a good sign, a sign that he in truth had "his possessions with him." In other words, far away from the schools, teachers, friends, patrons, and helpers, far from the nourishing and salutary home atmosphere of Castalia, he carried within himself the spirit and the energies of the Province, and with their aid he was moving toward an active and useful life.

  The foretold "young servant," as it turned out, appeared in the shape of a seminary pupil named Anton. Although this young man subsequently played no part in Joseph Knecht's life, in Joseph's peculiarly divided mood during his sojourn in the monastery the boy seemed a harbinger of new and greater things. Anton was a close-mouthed youngster, but temperamental and talented looking, and almost ready for admission into the community of monks. Joseph's path often crossed his, whereas he scarcely knew any of the other seminary pupils, who were confined in a wing by themselves, where guests were not admitted. In fact it was obvious that they were being kept from contact with him. Seminary pupils were not permitted to participate in the Game course.

  Anton worked as a helper in the library several times a week. Here it was that Knecht met him, and occasionally had a few words with him. As time went on, it became evident to Knecht that this young man with the intense eyes under heavy black brows was devoted to him with that enthusiasm and readiness to serve so typical of the boyish adoration he had encountered so often by now. Although every time it happened he felt a desire to fend it off, he had long ago come to recognize it as a vital element in the life of the Castalian Order. But in the monastery he decided to be doubly withdrawn; he felt it would be a violation of hospitality to exert any sway over this boy who was still subject to the discipline of religious education. Moreover, he was well aware that strict chastity was the commandment here, and this, it seemed to him, could make a boyish infatuation even more dangerous. In any case, he must avoid any chance of giving offense, and he governed himself accordingly.

  In the library, the one place where he habitually met Anton, he also made the acquaintance of a man he had at first almost failed to notice, so modest was his appearance. In time, however, he was to know him very well indeed, and to love him for the rest of his life with the kind of grateful reverence he felt, otherwise, only toward the now retired
Music Master. The man was Father Jacobus, perhaps the most eminent historian of the Benedictine Order. He was at that time about sixty, a spare, elderly man with a sparrow hawk's head on a long, sinewy neck. Seen from the front, his face had something dull and lifeless about it, since he was chary of gazing outward; but his profile, with the boldly curved line of the forehead, the deep furrow above the sharp bridge of his hooked nose, and the rather short but attractively shaped chin, suggested a definite and original personality.

  This quiet old man--who, incidentally, on closer acquaintance could be extremely vivacious--had a table of his own in a small room off the main hall of the library. Though the monastery possessed such priceless books, he seemed to be the only really serious working scholar in the place. It was, by the way, the novice Anton who by chance called Joseph Knecht's attention to Father Jacobus. Knecht had noticed that the room in which the scholar had his table was regarded almost as a private domain. The few users of the library entered it only if they had to, and then moved softly and respectfully on tiptoe, although the Father bent over his books did not appear to be easily disturbed. Knecht, of course, quickly imitated this circumspection, and thereby remained at a remove from the industrious old man.