The Glass Bead Game

by Hermann Hesse

  In the morning, when he sensed the house awakening, he rose. Finding a dressing gown laid ready beside his bed, he put it on, and stepped out through the rear door that Tito had shown him the night before into the arcade that connected the house with the bath hut by the lake.

  Before him the little lake lay motionless, gray-green. Further off was a steep cliff, its sharp, jagged crest still in shadow, rearing sheer and cold into the thin, greenish, cool morning sky. But he could sense that the sun had already risen behind this crest; tiny splinters of its light glittered here and there on corners of rock. In a few minutes the sun would appear over the crenellations of the mountain and flood lake and valley below with light. In a mood of earnest attentiveness, Knecht studied the scene, whose stillness, gravity, and beauty he felt as unfamiliar and nevertheless of deep concern and instructiveness to him. Now, even more strongly than during yesterday's ride, he felt the ponderousness, the coolness and dignified strangeness of this mountain world, which does not meet men halfway, does not invite them, scarcely tolerates them. And it seemed to him strange and significant that his first step into the freedom of life in the world should have led him to this very place, to this silent and cold grandeur.

  Tito appeared, in bathing trunks. He shook hands with the Magister and pointing to the cliffs opposite said: "You've come at just the right moment; the sun will be rising in a minute. Oh, it's glorious up here."

  Knecht gave him a friendly nod. He had learned long ago that Tito was an early riser, a runner, wrestler, and hiker, if only from protest against his father's casual, unsoldierly, comfort-loving ways. For the same reason he refused to drink wine. These leanings occasionally led him into a pose of being an anti-intellectual child of nature--the Designoris seemed to have this bent for exaggeration. But Knecht welcomed it all, and was determined to share his interest in sports as a means for winning over and taming the temperamental young man. It would be only one means among several, and not at all the most important; music, for example, would lead them much further. Of course he had no thought of matching the young man in physical feats, let alone surpassing him. But harmless participation would suffice to show the boy that his tutor was neither a coward nor a mere bookworm.

  Tito looked eagerly toward the dark crest of the mountain, behind which the sky pulsed in the morning light. Now a fragment of the rocky ridge flashed violently like a glowing metal beginning to melt. The crest blurred and seemed suddenly lower, as if it were melting down, and from the fiery gap the dazzling sun appeared. Simultaneously, the ground, the house, and their shore of the lake were illuminated, and the two, standing in the strong radiance, instantly felt the delightful warmth of this light. The boy, filled with the solemn beauty of the moment and the glorious sensation of his youth and strength, stretched his limbs with rhythmic arm movements, which his whole body soon took up, celebrating the break of day in an enthusiastic dance and expressing his deep oneness with the surging, radiant elements. His steps flew in joyous homage toward the victorious sun and reverently retreated from it; his outspread arms embraced mountain, lake, and sky; kneeling, he seemed to pay tribute to the earth mother, and extending his hands, to the waters of the lake; he offered himself, his youth, his freedom, his burning sense of his own life, like a festive sacrifice to the powers. The sunlight gleamed on his tanned shoulders; his eyes were half-closed to the dazzle; his young face stared masklike with an expression of inspired, almost fanatical gravity.

  The Magister, too, was overpowered by the solemn spectacle of dawn breaking in this silent, rocky solitude. But he was even more fascinated by the human spectacle taking place before his eyes, this ceremonial dance performed by his pupil to welcome the morning and the sun. The dance elevated this moody, immature youth, conferring upon him a priestly solemnity, suddenly in a single moment irradiating and revealing to the onlooker his deepest and noblest tendencies, gifts, and destinies just as the appearance of the sun opened and illuminated this cold, gloomy mountain dale. In this moment the young man seemed to him stronger and more impressive than he had hitherto thought, but also harder, more inaccessible, more remote from culture, more pagan. This ceremonial and sacrificial dance under the sign of Pan meant more than young Plinio's speeches and versemaking ever had; it raised the boy several stages higher, but also made him seem more alien, more elusive, less obedient to any summons.

  The boy himself was in the grip of his impulse, without knowing what was happening to him. He was not performing a dance he already knew, a dance he had practiced before. This was no familiar rite of celebrating sun and morning that he had long ago invented. Only later would he realize that his dance and his transported state in general were only partly caused by the mountain air, the sun, the dawn, his sense of freedom. They were also a response to the change awaiting him, the new chapter in his young life that had come in the friendly and awe-inspiring form of the Magister. In that morning hour many elements conspired in the soul of young Tito to shape his destiny and distinguish this hour above a thousand others as a high, a festive, a consecrated time. Without knowing what he was doing, asking no questions, he obeyed the command of this ecstatic moment, danced his worship, prayed to the sun, professed with devout movements and gestures his joy, his faith in life, his piety and reverence, both proudly and submissively offered up in the dance his devout soul as a sacrifice to the sun and the gods, and no less to the man he admired and feared, the sage and musician, the Master of the magic Game who had come to him from mysterious realms, his future teacher and friend.

  All this, like the torrent of light from the sunrise, lasted only a few minutes. Stirred to the core, Knecht watched the wonderful show, in which his pupil before his eyes changed and revealed himself, presenting himself in a new light, alien and entirely his equal. Both of them stood on the walk between house and hut, bathed in the radiance from the east and deeply shaken by their experience. Tito, having barely completed the last step of his dance, awoke from his ecstasy and stood still, like an animal surprised in solitary play, aware that he was not alone, that not only had he experienced and performed something unusual, but that he had also had a spectator. His first thought was how to extricate himself from the situation, which struck him now as somehow dangerous and shaming. He had to act vigorously, and smash the magic of these strange moments, which had totally absorbed and overwhelmed him.

  His face, but a moment before an ageless, stern mask, assumed a childish and rather foolish expression, like that of a person awakened too abruptly from a deep sleep. His knees swayed slightly; he looked into his teacher's face with vapid astonishment, and in sudden haste, as though something very important had just occurred to him, something he had neglected, he stretched out his right arm and pointed toward the opposite shore of the lake, which along with half the lake's waters still lay in the great, rapidly contracting shadow of the cliff whose top had already been conquered by the brilliance of the dawn.

  "If we swim very fast," he called out with boyish impetuosity, "we can just reach the other shore before the sun."

  The words were barely uttered, the challenge to a swimming race with the sun barely issued, when Tito with a tremendous leap plunged headfirst into the lake, as if in his high spirits or his shyness he could not get away fast enough and obliterate all memory of the preceding ritual by intensified activity. The water splashed up and closed around him. A few moments later his head, shoulders, and arms reappeared and remained visible on the blue-green surface, swiftly moving away.

  Knecht had not, when he came out, had in mind to bathe or swim. Both air and water were much too cool, and after his night of semi-illness, swimming would probably do him little good. But now, in the beautiful sunlight, stirred by the scene he had just witnessed, and with his pupil urging him into the water in this comradely fashion, he found the venture less deterring. Above all he feared that the promise born in this morning hour would be blasted if he disappointed the boy by opposing cool, adult rationality to this invitation to a test of strength. It was tru
e that his feeling of weakness and uncertainty, incurred by the rapid ascent into the mountains, warned him to be careful; but perhaps this indisposition could be soonest routed by forcing matters and meeting it head-on. The summons was stronger than the warning, his will stronger than his instinct. He quickly shed the light dressing gown, took a deep breath, and threw himself into the water at the same spot where his pupil had dived.

  The lake, fed by glacial waters so that even in the warmest days of summer one had to be inured to it, received him with an icy cold, slashing in its enmity. He had steeled himself for a thorough chilling, but not for this fierce cold which seemed to surround him with leaping flames and after a moment of fiery burning began to penetrate rapidly into him. After the dive he had risen quickly to the surface, caught sight of Tito swimming far ahead of him, felt bitterly assailed by this icy, wild, hostile element, but still believed he could lessen the distance, that he was engaging in the swimming race, was fighting for the boy's respect and comradeship, for his soul--when he was already fighting with Death, who had thrown him and was now holding him in a wrestler's grip. Fighting with all his strength, Knecht held him off as long as his heart continued to beat.

  The young swimmer had looked back frequently and seen with satisfaction that the Magister had followed him into the water. Now he peered once again, no longer saw him, and became uneasy. He looked and called, then turned and swam rapidly back. He could not find him. Swimming and diving, he searched for the lost swimmer until his strength too began to give out in the bitter cold. Staggering, breathless, he reached land at last, saw the dressing gown lying on the shore, and picking it up began mechanically rubbing his body and limbs until the numbed skin warmed again. Stunned, he sat down in the sunlight and stared into the water, whose cool blue-green now blinked at him strangely empty, alien, and evil. He felt overpowered by perplexity and deep sorrow, for with the waning of his physical weakness, awareness and the terror of what had happened returned to him.

  Oh! he thought in grief and horror, now I am guilty of his death. And only now, when there was no longer need to save his pride or offer resistance, he felt, in shock and sorrow, how dear this man had already become to him. And since in spite of all rational objections he felt responsible for the Master's death, there came over him, with a premonitory shudder of awe, a sense that this guilt would utterly change him and his life, and would demand much greater things of him than he had ever before demanded of himself.

  JOSEPH KNECHT'S POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS

  THE POEMS OF KNECHT'S STUDENT YEARS

  Lament

  No permanence is ours; we are a wave That flows to fit whatever form it finds: Through day or night, cathedral or the cave We pass forever, craving form that binds.

  Mold after mold we fill and never rest, We find no home where joy or grief runs deep.

  We move, we are the everlasting guest.

  No field nor plow is ours; we do not reap.

  What God would make of us remains unknown: He plays; we are the clay to his desire.

  Plastic and mute, we neither laugh nor groan; He kneads, but never gives us to the fire.

  To stiffen into stone, to persevere!

  We long forever for the right to stay.

  But all that ever stays with us is fear, And we shall never rest upon our way.

  A Compromise

  The men of principled simplicity

  Will have no traffic with our subtle doubt.

  The world is flat, they tell us, and they shout: The myth of depth is an absurdity!

  For if there were additional dimensions Beside the good old pair we'll always cherish, How could a man live safely without tensions?

  How could he live and not expect to perish?

  In order peacefully to coexist

  Let us strike one dimension off our list.

  If they are right, those men of principle, And life in depth is so inimical,

  The third dimension is dispensable.

  But Secretly We Thirst ...

  Graceful as dancer's arabesque and bow, Our lives appear serene and without stress, A gentle dance around pure nothingness To which we sacrifice the here and now.

  Our dreams are lovely and our game is bright, So finely tuned, with many artful turns, But deep beneath the tranquil surface burns Longing for blood, barbarity, and night.

  Freely our life revolves, and every breath Is free as air; we live so playfully, But secretly we crave reality:

  Begetting, birth, and suffering, and death.

  Alphabets

  From time to time we take our pen in hand And scribble symbols on a blank white sheet.

  Their meaning is at everyone's command; It is a game whose rules are nice and neat.

  But if a savage or a moon-man came

  And found a page, a furrowed runic field, And curiously studied lines and frame: How strange would be the world that they revealed.

  A magic gallery of oddities.

  He would see A and B as man and beast, As moving tongues or arms or legs or eyes, Now slow, now rushing, all constraint released, Like prints of ravens' feet upon the snow.

  He'd hop about with them, fly to and fro, And see a thousand worlds of might-have-been Hidden within the black and frozen symbols, Beneath the ornate strokes, the thick and thin.

  He'd see the way love burns and anguish trembles, He'd wonder, laugh, shake with fear and weep Because beyond this cipher's cross-barred keep He'd see the world in all its aimless passion, Diminished, dwarfed, and spellbound in the symbols, And rigorously marching prisoner-fashion.

  He'd think: each sign all others so resembles That love of life and death, or lust and anguish, Are simply twins whom no one can distinguish ...

  Until at last the savage with a sound Of mortal terror lights and stirs a fire, Chants and beats his brow against the ground And consecrates the writing to his pyre.

  Perhaps before his consciousness is drowned In slumber there will come to him some sense Of how this world of magic fraudulence, This horror utterly behind endurance, Has vanished as if it had never been.

  He'll sigh, and smile, and feel all right again.

  On Reading an Old Philosopher

  These noble thoughts beguiled us yesterday; We savored them like choicest vintage wines.

  But now they sour, meanings seep away, Much like a page of music from whose vines The clefs and sharps are carelessly erased: Take from a house the center of gravity, It sways and falls apart, all sense debased, Cacophony what had been harmony.

  So too a face we saw as old and wise, Loved and respected, can wrinkle, craze, As, ripe for death, the mind deserts the eyes, Leaving a pitiful, empty, shriveled maze.

  So too can ecstasy stir every sense

  And barely felt can quickly turn to gall, As if there dwelt within us cognizance That everything must wither, die, and fall.

  Yet still above this vale of endless dying Man's spirit, struggling incorruptibly, Painfully raises beacons, death defying, And wins, by longing, immortality.

  The Last Glass Bead Game Player

  The colored beads, his playthings, in his hand, He sits head bent; around him lies a land Laid waste by war and ravaged by disease.

  Growing on rubble, ivy hums with bees; A weary peace with muted psalmody

  Sounds in a world of aged tranquility.

  The old man tallies up his colored beads; He fits a blue one here, a white one there, Makes sure a large one, or a small, precedes, And shapes his Game ring with devoted care.

  Time was he had won greatness in the Game, Had mastered many tongues and many arts, Had known the world, traveled in foreign parts--

  From pole to pole, no limits to his fame.

  Around him pupils, colleagues always pressed.

  Now he is old, worn-out; his life is lees.

  Disciples come no longer to be blessed, Nor masters to invite an argument.

  All, all are gone, and the temples, libraries, And schools of Castalia are no more. At rest Amid the ruins, the glass bea
ds in his hand, Those hieroglyphs once so significant That now are only colored bits of glass, He lets them roll until their force is spent And silently they vanish in the sand.

  A Toccata by Bach

  Frozen silence.... Darkness prevails on darkness.

  One shaft of light breaks through the jagged clouds Coming from nothingness to penetrate the depths, Compound the night with day, build length and breadth, Prefigure peak and ridge, declivities, redoubts, A loose blue atmosphere, earth's deep dense fullness.

  That brilliant shaft dissevers teeming generation Into both deed and war, and in a frenzy of creation Ignites a gleaming terrified new world.